CO537-4998 — Page 245

ACT FROM C.0.5.49) Sel

MEETING HELD

14. 1. 49

96001/238

(TOP SECRET)

SITUATION IN HONG KONG

60.0

C.O.S.(48) 194

(5.0.8.(49) 12

J.P.(48) 124 (Final)

THE COMMITTEE had before them two letters from the, Colonial Office on the defence of Hong Kong in the present emergency and a report by the Joint Planning Staff on the strategic implications of the present situation in China.

MR. SIDEBOTHAM said that a Colonial Governors ་ Conference was being held in Singapore in the following week and a meeting of the British Defence Co-ordination Committee, Far East, at which plans for the defence of Hong Kong in the present emergency would be considered. The Colonial Office felt it important that the provisional views of the Chiefs of Staff on the defence of Hong Kong should be available to the Governors and the Co-ordination Committee at which meetings an Under-Secretary of State from the Colonial Office would attend.

In discussion, it was generally agreed that the question of the defence of Hong Kong only should be considered at the present meeting and consideration of the wider strategic implications of the situation in China should be deferred until the following week. Discussion at the present meeting therefore would be limited to the points raised in the two letters from the Colonial Office and Annex II and the Appendix to the report by the Joint Planning Staff.

MR. SIDEBOTHAM, referring to paragraph 4 (e) of Annex II of the report by the Joint Planning Staff said that there were political difficulties in erecting wire obstacles along the land frontiers of the Colony. Difficulties would also be presented by the action to be taken to prevent illegal immigrants from crossing these obstacles and the extent of force that would need to be taken.

THE CHIEFS OF STAFF pointed out that unless wire obstacles were erected, there would be no possibility of countering and controlling an influx of refugees. Although there might be difficulties present in erecting such obstacles and ensuring against illegal immigration of refugees, still greater difficulties would be involved later if the influx of large numbers of refugees was not prevented. It was therefore essential that all steps should be taken now by the military and civil authorities in consultation to make arrangements for controlling in an emergency all refugees attempting to enter the Colony.

MR. SIDEBOTHAM said that the Governor of Hong Kong had been given permission to expand the Police Force as required without reference to the Secretary of State. The difficulty was, however, to provide the additional higher grade officers. No further entrants could be. recruited from the Palestine Police. All such personnel had already been absorbed in other Colonial Police forces. Enlistment from the United Kingdom was no solution in that training was unlikely to be completed in time. As regards the lower grades, Chinese recruits would not be reliable.

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