CO129-610-3 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University 15-2-1949 - 7-2-1950 — Page 47

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formedky

will reverter and web of the Commlas Service in Ching and who

was a member of Committee,

were represented,

the 1946

which

you

on th

puters of the Whisesty.

specific question on which we are at the

moment anxious for your advice.

3. This question was raised in a letter

to our Secretary of State from Sir George Moss,

doubt knew. Sir George

whom you

suggested that should the Communist

Government in China continue along the paths

of xenophobia on which its feet seem set,

the suppression of Western-sponsored

universities in China might well produce a

situation in which Hong Kong University

was the only outport of Western culture, and

in particular of Anglo-Saxon culture and the

English language, within reach of China; and

that in that event it would be to the

advantage of those interests, whatever their

nationality or their religious affiliations,

who have supported the Western universities in

China, to divert their resources to the nearest

Western outpost on the periphery of Communist

domination. While Japan might have

attradtions for American interests, Hong Kong

is both nearer China and a Chinese centre.

Sir George therefore envisages a situation in

which all these interests, among whom the

Americans would of course be pre-eminent,

would join together, and join with ourselves,

in building up a university in Hong Kong which

would fully and worthily represent our joint Western culture,acting as a base from which to

maintain some sort of contact with China and

re-open direct cultural relations should

circumstances change again.

This is a grand and somewhat visionary

conception,