SECRET
PRO DOCUMENT PUT IN PLACE
25 FEB 2009
BACKGROUND NOTES
DEFENCE AND INTERNAL SECURITY
NO. 7
Hong Kong could not be defended against a determined Chinese attack
There are no plans for tho
reinforcement of Hong Kong against oxternal aggression and the external
role of the garrison is to "identify aggression". Although there is no
agroomont with the United States about coming to the defence of Hong Kong,
the U.S. Government have been given an assurance that it is our intention
to rosist aggression. Local opinion, while probably under no illusion about the ability of the prosent garrison to resist for long, regards the oxistence of British troops deployed to guard the frontier as an assuranco
of our intention to defend the Colony; it is probably assumed locally
that in any general hostilities in the area the Seventh Flect would,
intervene.
necessary,
2.
if
An ovort attack by the Chinoso is less likely than an attempt to get
the Colony by subversion. Our ability to preserve law and order depends ossontielly on anintaining tho confidence of the Chinese population in the
British intention to stay. The majority are politically inarticulate.
Thoir wish is to trade and survivo. They do not wish to be on the losing
side and once their confidence started to slip the process would bo
accumulativo and there would be en increasing tendency to transfor
allegianco to Poking.
3.
At the end of 1966 British military forces in the Colony wore 63
major Army units, four fighter ciroraft and three coastal minesweepers. 4. The Army units were to have boon roduced to 5 major units during 1967-68; but this decision was never publicly announced and has been indefinitely postponed because of the present disturbed conditions.
/cerrison
The
ACT 1958 UNTIL SECTION 5(1) OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS THE ORIGINAL HAS BEEN CLOSED UNDER THIS IS A COPY
2004
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