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COLONIAL
OFFICE
For inclusion in Part E
7. American Involvement. The Americans make great use of Hong Kong. It is convenient as a recreational centre for their forces engaged in the Viet-Nam war, although it is not indispensible for this purpose since either the Philippines or Formosa could serve the same purpose.
The
Americans also use Hong Kong as their major centro for "China watching". In this role Hong Kong is unique. These two considerations, together with the United States' policy of containing China, make it certain that the Americans would wish us to stay in Hong Kong at least as long as there is a Communist government in Poking.
8. Ono of the factors which prevents Chinese military involvement in any neighbouring country (i.o. India or Viet-Nam) is tho fear of American nuclear retaliation against China. The Chinose leadership appear to be genuinely convinced that the Americans wish to attack China and, despite their propaganda about nuclear weapons being "paper tigers", there is little doubt that they take seriously the throat of a massive nuclear attack. Although this fear does not provent China from pursuing policies of hostility towards the United States it does seem to prevent them from pushing these policies to the point of direct confrontation. It is therefore arguable that the Chinese could be deterred from taking action against Hong Kong by the throat of American retaliation against China. It is, however, probably true that they would only be deterred in this way from military actions against Hong Kong which could be clearly defined as "Chinese aggression". It is much less likely that a deterrent of this sort could put an end to the incitement to subversion in Hong Kong, since the Chinese would calculate, quite correctly, that there is no point at which such subversion can be considered as the justification for nuclear rotaliation against China.
9. Although we believe that the Americans want us to stay in Hong Kong for the moment, we think it unlikely that they would be prepared to give any thing approaching a public nuclear guarantee for Hong Kong. A guarantoo of this sort for a British colony in Asia would be unacceptable for many reasons. Thoro night, however, be advantage in trying to make the Chinese believe that the Americans are involved in or committed to the defence of Hong Kong. The continued prosence of American ships in Hong Kong is helpful in this connoxion and other methods of doing so should also be considered.
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