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F.
AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT
44.
The
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, Americans also use Hong Kong as their major centre 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 Peking.
45. One of the factors which prevents Chinese military involvement in any neighbouring country (i.e. India or Viet-Nam) is the fear of American nuclear retaliation against China. The Chinese 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 threat of a massive nuclear attack. Although this fear does not prevent 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 threat 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 retaliation against China.
46. The Americans would like us to stay in Hong Kong for as long as possible because of Hong Kong's value for intelligence purposes and its political value as a Free World enclave on the mainland of China. For domestic as well as international reasons, however, they would be very unlikely to be willing to give a public nuclear guarantee for Hong Kong nor for our own reasons would we wish them to do so. There is, however, advantage in trying to make the Chinese believe that the Americans are involved in or committed to the defence of Hong Kong. The continued presence of American warships in Hong Kong is helpful in this connection.
/G.
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