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the Secretary of State for Defence, the President of the
Board of Trade, the Lord Privy Seal, the Chief Secretary to
the Treasury and the Minister of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs (Lord Shepherd).
3.
Hong Kong is a special case in the political
We cannot bring it
evolution of our colonial territories.
to any form of independent status and must accept that it
will eventually be returned to China. The circumstances of
this return are almost bound to be painful. Ministers have
been understandably concerned lest we might be overlooking
opportunities for initiating policies now that might make the
problem easier to deal with in the long term. It is, I think,
a reasonable conclusion from the Report that there are no
fresh initiatives that we can take in present circumstances
that will make the problem of Hong Kong much less intractable
in the longer term.
4.
It is suggested that in presenting the Report to the
Ministerial Committee the Secretary of State might be briefed
to make the following points:-
(i) There can be no clean-cut, tidy solution to the
predicament facing us in Hong Kong. We must expect
Chinese hostility (even malevolence) and a desire
on their part to pay off old scores. The Colony
will remain a central factor in our future relations
with China; but we shall not be able to dispose of it
(to the possible benefit of those relations) other
than by some agreement or understanding with China:
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2
/disposal
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