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7.
For inclusion in Part
American Involvement.
The Americans make great uso of Hong Kong.
It is convenient as a rocreational contre for their forces ongaged in the Viet-Nam war, although it is not indispensible for this purpose since either the Philippines or Formosa could serve the same purposo. The Americans also use Hong Kong as their major contro 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 provents Chinese military involvement in any neighbouring country (1.0. India or Viot-Nam) is the foar of Amorican nuclear rotaliation against China. The Chinoso loadership appoar to bo gonuinely convinced that the Americans wish to attack China and, despite their propaganda about nuclear weapons being "paper tigers", there is littlo doubt that they take scriously the threat of a massivo nuclear attack. Although this foar does not provent China from pursuing policies of hostility towards the United Statos it does seem to prevent them from pushing those policies to the point of direct confrontation. It is therefore arguable that the Chinese could be deterred from taking notion against Hong Kong by the throat of American retaliation against China. It is, however, probably true that they would only be deterrod in this way from military actions against Hong Kong which could be clearly dofined as "Chinose Ecgrossion". It is much less likely that a deterrent of this sort could put an end to the incitement to subversion in Hong Kong, sinco 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.
Tale on slip]
9.
Although we hallove that the Americans want us to stay in Hong Kong for the moment, wo think it unlikely that they would be prepared to give anything approaching a publie mucioar guarantee for Hong Kong. A guarantee of this sort for a British colony in Asia would be unacceptable for many roagens, There might, however, be advantage in trying to mako the Chinese believo that the Americans are involved in or committed to the defence of Hong Kong. The continued presence of American ships in Hong Kong is holpful in this connoxion and other methods of doing so should also be considered.
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