TNAG-0295-FCO40-331-Long-term-study-of-the-future-of-Hong-Kong-1971 — Page 20

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THE FUTURE OF HONG KONG

1. In the annexes to this paper are 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. In this paper no proposals are made which require

immediate decisions, but a number of considerations in relation

to the future of the Colony are set out which we must inevitably

bear in mind, and the options with which any Government will be

faced as time goes on are set out.

2.

The present Chinese Government, and probably any Chinese

Government in the foreseeable future, see no distinction between

the status of those areas of the Colony acquired by Britain by cession

under the Treaties of Nanking and Peking and that of the New

Territories which are held under lease. All, as they see it, are

part of China and to be recovered at the appropriate time. It is

therefore unrealistic for us to think of them differently. For

this reason independence as a goal for the Colony is unthinkable

and so is any movement towards constitutional progress along

conventional decolonisation lines.

3.

Secondly, it is very difficult indeed to imagine Hong Kong

as viable if the New Territories are detached from it at the expiry

of their lease in 1997. The frontier would lie in the middle of a

built-up area; Kaitak airport would be in China; so would a

substantial part 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 3 million, assuming

that there was not a huge influx from the New Territories.

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