CO537-3706 — Page 95

84

185

185

CYPHER/OTP

RESE

1 MAF 1948

0.0. REGY

POLITICAL DISTRIBUTION

FROM NANKING TO FOREIGN OFFICE

Sir R. Stevenson. No. 238.

6th March, 1948.

Repeated to: Hong Kong.

IMPORTANT

LIGHT

19+

RECEIVED

9- MAR 1948 0.0. REGY.

D: 1.48 p.m. 6th March, 1948.

R: 4.46 p.m. 6th March, 1948.

Addressed to Foreign Office telegram No. 238 of March 6th repeated to Hong Kong.

My tologram No. 231; Kowloon.

Doctor Haw Li Wa (Vice Minister of Education) having spent an hour with His Majesty's Minister yesterday dis- cussing the Kowloon City issue came to see me to-day about it.

2. It became rapidly clear from what Doctor Haw Li Wa said, that the Minister for Foreign Affairs is suffering from cold feet about the extent to which he thought he had yielded in his conversation with me on March 3rd (my telegram No. 229). Dr. Haw Li Wa told me that he was speaking with the authorisation of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and informed me that the Chinese Government had come to the conclusion that they could only consent to a settlement on the lines mentioned in my telegram No. 229 if it were publicly announced that the whole area would be under Chinese jurisdiction. This is going even further backwards than was indicated by the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs (my telegram No. 231).

3.

Of course Doctor Haw Li Wa and the Minister for Foreign Affairs know perfectly well that this is both unacceptable and impracticable as Dr. Haw Li Wa admitted that he had no idea how Chinese jurisdiction would in fact be enforced in this small isolated area and, moreover, he went on to emphasise

(a) fear of the Chinese Government that even a settlement on these lines would lead to trouble in the future and

(b) disclosed preference of the Chinese Government for their original proposal to use the whole site for offices of Chinese Special Commissioner. In fact the object of Dr. Haw Li Wa's intervention seems to have been to bring about a return to the consideration of that proposal.

4. I feel that I must stress once again the weakness of the present Chinese Government. For internal party reasons they literally dare not accept a settlement, however fair

/and sensible, which

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