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3. The report was considered at a meeting of the Ministerial
Committee on Hong Kong on 22 September which the Governor of 33) Hong Kong attended (K(67) 2nd Meeting, Item 2). The Ministerial
Committee agreed with the conclusions of the report that
contingency planning on the lines which the Defence and Oversea
Policy Committee had agreed should be studied could not be
carried out within the limitations imposed by security and that the
possibility was remote that any plan could be prepared for the
evacuation of significant numbers of people. However, before
reporting these conclusions to my colleagues, I invited the
Governor to report on the extent to which plans were already in
existence for the evacuation of specially vulnerable persons;
how far any such plans could be pursued without risk to security;
and also on the effectiveness of any plan which could be prepared
within the limitations imposed.
The Minister of State for Commonwealth Affairs (Lord Shepherd)
discussed this matter with the Governor during his recent visit to
Hong Kong. It would not be possible to make any worthwhile plans
for evacuation without extending beyond the Governor and the Commander British Forces the knowledge that evacuation plans were being prepared and, in the opinion of the Governor and of Lord Shepherd, to extend this knowledge to other officials in Hong Kong on the scale necessary to produce meaningful plans would constitute
an unacceptable risk. I agree with this view.
5. I consider that we should take no action to plan for an
evacuation at the present time. If we were faced with a rapidly
deteriorating situation in which it became evident that we would
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