CO129-593-2 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University. For extracted photographs see CN 3-45. Includes 32 photographs depicting-... 10-1-1945 - 20-1-1946 — Page 78

75 Section 4.

In section (b) of that you pose a F. E. University as the alternative to a Hong Kong -Chinese University. I had not a desire to raise any other issue at this stage, but your very clear analysis compels me to suggest that from our -

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the Hong Kong point of view, this is not the only alternative. If the answer to (a) is a decisive "no", then, I think, it might be proper to consider the desirability of starting a British College or Institute in one of the major centres of Chinese life Nanking or Pekin. Some such project on this necessarily ariser if one believes (a) that good relations with China are of paramount importance and (b) that good relations based on intellectual sympathies and mutual understanding in the region of aesthetic are more likely to be stable than relations based, in the Generalissimo's phrase, "on the haggling of merchants". think the British atmosphere of an institution such as we have in mind would be less contaminable by political toxins than that of an institution in China itself. (I gather that the British Language School in Pekin wants a deal of overhauling and that a British teaching hospital would be a valuable gift in any large Chinese town. However the nature of the Institution would probably be largely a matter for the consideration of the British Council, or some such expert body). This second alternative would at least preserve consistency with that British policy in China that authorized the founding of a University in Hong Kong. TO merge Hong Kong University in a Far East University has clear reason, but it represents a breach with the past. However disappointing our past achievement, I still think that the not inconsiderable number of our graduates now working in China, some in places of authority, has helped towards understanding. think, too, that the change would cause regret in China. don't want to embark on a detailed defence of this second alternative to your Section 4 (a); indeed, I would have preferred to say nothing. Your analysis is so complète otherwise, that I thought it only fair to mention a project which I have discussed only with John Keswick, who is acting as liason officer between the Hong Kong Military Administration and Chungking.

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