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to Parliament for the administration of the teritory.
might find that our control was so circumscribed as to
prevent our making any attempt to discharge our
responsibilities to even the vulnerable category of
Chinese in Hong Kong.
We
71. From the third course the possibility of negotiating
our withdrawal there could be no drawing back if the terms
were unacceptable; our internal position in Hong Kong could
not survive abortive negotiations, even if the Chinese were
prepared to accept the situation. We might have to offer,
during the negotiations or as part of the negotiated
settlement, to associate the Chinese with the administration
of the Colony as a means of maintaining the internal security
situation, but as a course to be pursued deliberately, even
in a situation where the Chinese are showing a spirit of
reasonable co-operation, it would carry some great dangers.
From a position within the administration, the Chinese would
have an infinite capacty to interfere. At any time they would
be able to instigate trouble among their supporters and then
to hamper or frustrate our efforts to deal with it. If they
were not already represented in the security forces as part
of the arrangement, they would possess a cast-iron pretext for
bringing police or troops in to deal with a difficult or
deteriorating situation. They could use their position to
limit our withdrawal of persons and assets, to the extent
that they considered it necessary to retain "hostages" in
order to squeeze the maximum advantage out of us (both before
and after our departure). They could manoeuvre us into a
position in which we might be forced to postpone our
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/departure
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