TNAG-0123-FCO40-159-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1971 — Page 16

3.

TOP SECRET

Responsibility for implementing these

instructions was assumed by the Cabinet Office and

carried out by a small group of the Defence Review

Working Party.

The Working Party's report,

months work, hampered

although substantially the work of departments of the

former Commonwealth Office and Foreign Office,is,

therefore, an interdepartmentally agreed study.....

It was prepared in consultation (as opportunity

offered) with the Governor of Hong Kong and

Sir Donald Hopson, former Chargé d'Affaires in

Peking. For security reasons no copy of the

Report (or of earlier drafts) is held by anyone

outside Whitehall. The outcome represents many

The study has necessarily taken some time to

Prepare This is partly due to the intractable

nature of the problem facing us. It was also due

in part to the uncertainty surrounding Chinese

attitudes and intentions towards the Colony at the'

height of the Cultural Revolution and the difficulty

of assessing what effects the turmoil in China

might have on that country's policy towards Hong

Kong in the long term. The difficulty of taking

full account of the views of the Governor of Hong

Kong (the former Commonwealth Secretary quite

has bien properly issued an instruction to that effect) was

a further complication; because it was considered

of overriding importance that the existence of this

document should not become known in Hong Kong, the

opportunities for consultation with the Governor were

confined to the occasions when he visited the U.K.

One four

and

senior officials visited Hong Kong .

Foverain and Commonwealth Off,TOP SECRET

Downma

Str. S.W.1.

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