TNAG-0056-FCO40-92-Evacuation-plan-1967 — Page 121

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1.

A Meeting of the Hong Kong Ministerial Committee on 24th July (K(67) 1st Meeting) agreed that contingency plans should be prepared

for the physical evacuation from the Colony of British subjects and

other persons for whom we had a special responsibility. The first

task of the group to be set up for this purpose should be to give a

broad indication of the physical problems of evacuation. Stress

was laid on the need for the strictest secrecy about this planning,

as any leak would deal public confidence in Hong Kong a shattering

blow. The Defence and Oversea Policy Committee confirmed that contingency

planning should proceed and emphasised that knowledge of the exercise

should be limited in Hong Kong to the Governor and the Commander,

British Forces.

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The

3. In considering the Report the following factors are relevant (a) The paper is confined to the immediate problem of essential evacuation from the Colony in the event of a sudden emergency. Working Party will consider in future papers the problems presented

by a Chinese policy of prolonged attrition directed against the

Government of Hong Kong, and the situation as the end of the lease of

the New Territories in 1997 draws near.

(b) As regards the problem considered in the present paper, the Working Party recognised that evacuation might have to take place as

the result of a situation either where the local authorities could not

maintain control of the Colony owing to the intensification of civil

disturbances or where Chinese troops had crossed the frontier in force.

It was considered, however, that in practice the difference between the

two situations would have no great significance. If control of the

situation in the Colony were lost, then Chinese military intervention would be likely; if, on the other hand, the Chinese planned to launch

a military attack, they could arrange for it to be accompanied by widespread disturbances in Hong Kong. In either case, police and British forces would be fully extended and able to do little to cover

evacuation.

DJI

(c) It is clear from the foregoing that the possibility of being able to evacuate our troops would be remote, except in the unlikely circumstances of a negotiated, large-scale withdrawal from the Colony. A fighting withdrawal on the lines of Dunkirk when all else had been

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