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Mr. Wilford
HONG KONG
I agree with the general line of your
paper attached and have suggested one or two
minor re-adjustments.
With Jonson
(L. Monson)
11 December, 1970.
Copy without enclosure to:
Sir S. Tomlinson
Mr. Cradock
Mr. Laird.
Con Not
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From
the extent of the
Colony.
To:-
Annexes
the legal situation
the system of Government not yet drafted
the situation today.
frelephone No. & Ext.
Department
THE FUTURE OF HONG KONG
Cho No 24-5
D
destrage
119/2/1
In
In the annexes to this paper I set out details of
the physical characteristics of the Crown Colony of
Hong Kong, of the legal position in respect of our
tenure of it and of the situation there today.
this paper I make no proposals which require immediate
decisions, but I set out a number of considerations in
relation to the future of the colony which we must inevitably bear in mind and attempt to set out the
options with which any Government will be faced as time
goes on.
2. The present Chinese Government, and probably any Chinese Government in the foreseeable future,
Mose water
see no
distinction between the status of the territories
(by Britain by cession acquired/under the Treaties of Nanking and Pęking and
/unde that of the New Territorves
• which are held under leaking and
All are part of China
and to be recovered at the appropriate time. It is
(for und therefore unrealistic to think of them differently. Moreover for this reason independence is unthinkable and so is any movement towards constitutional progress
decolonisation) along conventional/lines.
3. Secondly,
of
Secondly, I cannot see Hong Kong as viable if the New Territories are detached from it at the expiry their lease in 1997. The frontier would lie on
Boundary Street a mile from Kowloon docks in the middle of a built up area;, Kaitak airport would be in China; so would most of the industrial area and
also the main reservoirs; virtually no food would be grown in British territory. The population remaining
in our control would be of the order of [2 m.] assuming that there was not a huge influx from the New Territories
1,500M 2/69 Hw.
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2
4. The options which appear open to us, though events cannot be said to lie fully within our control, are broadly as follows:
(a) do nothing, either on the assumption that
(b)
(c)
the Chinese will be prepared to permit the present situation to persist unaltered after 1997, or simply because no other course of action seems feasible;
prepare a voluntary and negotiated with-
(from the whole colmy
drawal as soon as this can be arranged;
negotiate with the Chinese at the earliest possible moment with a view to
(i)
organising an orderly British withdrawal in 1997;
(ii) maintaining the Crown Colony post-1997
on the assumption that the Chinese
might permit the retention of the New Territories under the present lease or on newly negotiated terms.
Before deciding which of these options may be obtainable there are certain facts to be stated:
(a) There seems no likelihood of any negotiation
with the Chinese being feasible during the life time of Mao Tse-tung; even afterwards it may not be possible.
15.
(b)
The nearer we approach to 1997 the greater is the danger of loss of confidence in Hong Kong. This could not only result in the breakdown of the administration, but will certainly mean that investment will fall off and the industrial machine will run down. The result, relatively quickly, would be that Hong Kong would become a financial liability to H.M.G. By the middle 1970s certain decisions will have to be taken, for example on electricity and telephone franchises, which will expose H.M.G.'s way of thinking.
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