CONFIDENTIAL
4. Turning now to the other points raised in your
letter to Willson of 26 November 1970, the only
additional information we can contribute in reply to
your paragraph 2 is that we have had a report from
Hong Kong that the project is attracting considerable
interest in Europe, Japan and North America.
5. As to the political situation in the Colony, the Chinese
Commuret Peoples
Chinese Governments
Government of China like previous
all of
regard/Hong Kong as Chinese
(from them,
res
territory, wrested from the mainland during a period
(Chines
of/weakness and to be recovered in due course.
The situation, they say Chinese official attitude is that Hong Kong is a
The
legacy from unequal treaties in the past and that the
which Chinese claim will be settled peacefully through nego-
at an appropriate
tiations win the time.ispipe.
6. In recent months Sino/British relations have
noticeably improved and there have been many indica-
tions that the Chinese do not wish to stir up trouble
in Hong Kong. Since the end of the disturbances in
appear to
1967 the local Hong Kong communists have been under
instructions from Peking to observe the law and to
concentrate on deriving the maximum economic benefits
for China from the Colony. It is of course impossible
(of what will happen
in the years ahead) to give any guarantee in
10 A borlar thig kind; but
basing ourselves on the situation as it is today and
having regard to likely developments we think it
would be fair to say that the political risk of a
major upheaval in Hong Kong over the next fifteen
years is no greater than it has been in the last
fifteen years.
7. The Hong Kong Government will clearly have to
assess the need for the underground railway against
(and not only the
New
territories}
whose lease runes to
1997)
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