TNAG-0252-FCO40-288-Strength-of-Hong-Kong-garrison-1970 — Page 27

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FED

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Office of the Political Adviser to the

Commander-in-Chief, Far East, Phoenix Park,

Singapore 10.

6 October, 1970.

Dear Michael,

I think I should let you know that the Head of Secretariat, Far East Command, has sent a formal proposal to the Secretary of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in London to the effect that administrative control of the Brunei garrison should be handed over from HQ Far East Land Forces at Singapore to HQ Land Forces at Hong Kong on 1 April 1971, assuming that HMG will by then have agreed to keep a

You will no doubt garrison battalion in Brunei beyond 31 May 1971.

The be consulted about this proposal by the Ministry of Defence. recommendation has been evolved in discussions between the Commander Far East Land Forces, the Vice-Chief of the General Staff and the Commander British Forces Hong Kong.

2.

The recommendation to London takes due account of the need to ensure that the Sultan is given no grounds for assuming in advance of the negotiations in November that HMG have already made up their mind to keep the battalion in Brunei. You need have no misgivings

on that score.

3. There may however be another aspect to the question, and this

It has concerns HMG's and Hong Kong's relationships with China. always been my understanding, although I cannot put my finger on chapter and verse, that it is a fairly strict principle of FCO policy that the British garrison in Họng Tùng xists solely for the maintenance of peace and security Laachg Kong and has no responsi- bilities whatever in connection wig british colonies or other territories elsewhere. The only..cebion to this of which I have heard is that the Honour Guard for korea is found from Hong Kong, and this is an almost insignificant exception. I am afraid I am out of my depth in this matter and am not sufficiently acquainted with the details of British policy towards China to know whether there is a point here on which I should advise the Commander-in-Chief one way or the other. I therefore bring the matter to your attention so that if there is anything which needs to be said you can say it to the Ministry of Defence. I imagine that, even if there is a political difficulty, CBF Hong Kong's administrative control over the battalion in Brunei could be arranged and exercised in such a way that no link between the garrison in Hong Kong and the garrison in Brunei would need to be admitted publicly. It ought not to be too difficult to avoid any implication that Hong Kong was being used as a base from which to support an autocratic Sultan who treated his Chinese subjects unsympathetically.

4. I have told CINCFE that I am raising this point with you and leaving it to be developed by you if there is anything in it.

Yours ever,

fur

(R. A. IBBERT)

FIDBERT)

K. M. Wilford, Esq., C.M.G.,

Foreign and Commonwealth Office,

LONDON, S.W.1.

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