CO537-3707 — Page 65

FOREIGN

OFFICE,

S.W.1.,

29th November, 1948.

303.

(299).

351...

Dean This Burycham",

With reference to Hongkong No. 1079 concerning the proposal to hand over the whole area of Kowloon City jointly with the Chinese Government to the United Nations for the site of the permanent head- quarters of ECAFE or other U. N. organisations.

We have discussed this and were agreed that this proposal could not provide the solution to the immediate problem with which ECAFE is faced, that is, to find immediate accommodation for the Secretariat, in the event of their having to evacuate Shanghai. We have, therefore, made no mention of it in our telegram to our delegation to ECAFE in connexion with the whole site question, and I would be grateful if you could reply to Hongkong on those lines.

I presume that the prospects of offering Kowloon City to the United Nations at some later date for a permanent site in the Far East, will be explored by the appropriate departments of the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office in the context of the political issues involved. This is just to confirm that as far as ECAFE is concerned, we can make no immediate use of the proposal.

Your Incenely

са

Themed

(J.F. Turner)

Miss J. Burnham,

Colonial Office.

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