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It is most unlikely (with the precedent of Shanghai before us) that China would stand by while we stripped Hong Kong of such people and assets as we wished to remove. We can expect to be restricted both as to the time allowed and in our freedom of action. Given the attitude of successive Chinese Governments to our tenure of the Colony and to foreign Governments in general, they are likely to want to make our loss and discomfiture as great as
Nor is it within our power, by military force, to possible. hold them off while we make the necessary arrangements. This likely Chinese attitude and the nature of the problems we shall face (particularly the internal security problem) point to the need to reach some understanding or arrangement with China.
The Possibilities
57.
Against this background of a need to find a solution in co-operation with China, we consider the possibilities of divesting ourselves of Hong Kong.
58. If a separate status could be found for Hong Kong, independent of Britain or China and under United Nations auspices or otherwise, we would have done what we could to protect the non-Communist population of Hong Kong from forcible "liberation".
The
At the same
time the difficulties over constitutional advance would be removed. But there is no real prospect of any solution which does not provide for the resumption of Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong. present Chinese Government is certain to deny that the United Nations has any standing in the question: it has on a number of occasions in a United Nations context made it clear, through Communist Member States of the United Nations, that the future of Hong Kong is not a matter for the United Nations but rests between China and Britain, Any change in this attitude is inconceivable in the foreseeable future. And we do not have any means of bringing effective pressure to bear on China to accept any solutioh on those lines. An economic embargo on trade with China, if indeed it could be effectively organised for the sake of Hong Kong, would seriously damage the Colony's economy. The Colony would cease to have any economic value to China and the danger of a forcible takeover would thereby be greatly increased.
59.
The possibilities are therefore :-
(i) to abdicate our position by unilateral action,
declaring our intention to go in a specified period of time with or without an indication of our readiness to talk to the Chinese about it;
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/(ii) ...
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