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majority of the Chinese population (for whom there could be no hope of escape) would seek to come to terms with the other side.
Instead of the gen-ral public giving support to the authorities
(such as has been given in the recent disturbances) they would at
the best sit on the fence and at the worst lend their support in
large numbers to the Communist cause. The forces of xenophobia
and disorder would be unleashed, fomented and fanned by the
mainland Communists with support from Feking, since it is most
unlikely that China would not interfere in a situation in which
they could see the opportunity to inflict maximum humiliation on
There would very quickly develop an internal security
situation that we would be unable to contain and our position would
become untenable. Secondly, any overt sign of an intention to
withdraw would give encouragement in China to those who see more
advantage in recovering Hong Kong than in maintaining the status
quo, increasing the possibility of direct Chinese intervention.
us.
But
6. The paper mentioned (paragraph 7) the difficulties in dealing
with evacuation in debates in the House of Lords where the
question was evaded by Lord Beswick on the 22nd June and ignored
by Lord Shepherd when it came up again on the 9th November.
it has to be faced in an equally a cute form in direct questions
put by constituents in correspondence with Members of Parliament
and passed to us for answer. Here we have not been particularly
successful in practising evasion and a really persistent
correspondent or may eventually corner us. We consider the
Secretary of State may need his colleagues agreement to stating
flatly that we are not planning to evacuate Hong Kong.
W.S Carter
Hong Kong Department, 20th December, 1967.
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