Draft big for mooming
Ministes.
SECRET
Geopolitical Position
RECEVED IN REGISTRY No.51 24JUMS,J
Акк
K271.
2
PA Ралиётся briefing file
of. Internal
AS
24.6.70
Lease of New Territories
HONG KON
BASIC PROBLEMS
п
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9 hen and thi
1:3
forward. EX. 2416
The Crown Colony of Hong Kong Is by far the largest
(in terms of economic activity and population) of our
remaining Dependent Territories. It is one of the most
densely populated areas of the world. There can, however,
by no constitutional progress towards self-government in the
Colony since there have been frequent and plain indications
that the Chinese Peoples Government expects the constitutional
status quo to be maintained.
2. The Hong Kong Government has constantly to bear in mind
the susceptibilities of its infinitely more powerful communist
Chinese neighbour while at the same time making it clear to
the world at large that it is master in its own house and
has no intention of being reduced to a communist cypher as
has happened in the case of its near neighbour Macao. It
demonstrated the latter point very clearly by its handling
of the communist inspired disturbances which occurred in the
Colony during 1967. One major factor that the communists
apparently overlooked on that occasion was that approximately
one third of Hong Kong's population of four million people
consisted of refugees from Communist China who had "voted
with their feet" for the way of life that the Colony could
offer them.
3. Another of Họng Kong's basic problems arises from the
fact that the lease of the New Territories (which comprise 365 square miles out of the Colony's total area of 400 square
miles) expires in 1997 and there is at the moment no
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