TNAG-0103-FCO40-139-Briefs-and-background-notes-for-Lord-Shepherd-1967 — Page 75

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was not implemented, partly because of the unsettled conditions in the

Far East, and partly because of the difficulty of devising a suitable

electoral system for a Colony in which much of the population at that

time was not ordinarily resident and many residents were not British

subjects. In contrast to the general post-war desire for representative

and responsible government in other colonial territories, there is no

general demand for constitutional change in Hong Kong. The Chinese, who

constitute 98% of the population, are not really interested in

constitutional reform; their desire is to live and work under a well-

established system of law and order and to pursue their own private affairs

with a minimum of interference by government. Informed opinion in the

colony is also aware of the danger either that the introduction of

clections would lead to open political strife between Communist and K.M.T.

supporters, which would be intolerable to Peking and might start reactions

which would lead to the end of the Colony's separate existence;

public political apathy would lead to complete Communist control of the

Colony's institutions, which would nake our position impossible.

or that

8. The lease of the Now Territories expires in 1997 and there is no

likelihood that it will be renewed. Without the leased arca the Colony

will not romain viable. It seems inevitable therefore that the territory's

ultimate future will lie in re-incorporation with China. There is a school

of thought (e.g. in the Hong Kong Reform Club and the United Nations

Association for Hong Kong) which considers that the developnont of

representative and responsible government in Hong Kong is possible.

has even boen suggested that, if and when the tine cones for the Colony's

reincorporation into China, the existence of representative and responsible

institutions could be used as a lever to extract from the Chinese some

autonomous status for Hong Kong as part of the Chinese Republic. We know

of no justification for these views. On the contrary there have been

frequent and plain indications that the C.P.G. cxpocts the "status quo" in

It

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/Hong Kong

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