TNAG-0447-FCO40-512-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 12

FCO40 Hong Kong Department Records 聯邦事務部香港部檔案 All

SECRET

Mr Wilford

S. Ration.

NUCLEAR POWER STATION FOR HONG KONG

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY Ho, 51

20 AUG 1974

On Gowd

HKK 4!

па мамла

then PLA

2018

This will

1. Thank you for letting me see these papers. Mr Laughton has not yet got in touch with me and perhaps will not now do so.

cause me no pain.

2.

May I nonetheless make one comment on your letter to Sir Murray MacLehose? I can see that if links are made clumsily between the power station and the future there is indeed a risk of embarrassment and possibly of weakening of public confidence. But is there another side to the story? What assumptions do we make about economic inter- dependence between Hong Kong and China and how this will evolve between now and the 1990s? I take it that this is a problem that will become increasingly relevant as Hong Kong expands and the implications of future arrangements become more and more a matter which business judgement has to take into account. The lead time on major projects is now so long that by the end of this decade tycoons will be more and more concerned with this general point.

3. It may be, I suppose, that there will be some form of asymmetric development in Hong Kong in the sense that there will be a willingness to continue economic activity on which you can amortise your capital quickly and hesitation about anything in the more fundamental sectors of the economy.

12 August 1974

витрими

PHR Marshall

Seen. In the shall has a pint, but 5. Suspect that

long-term ecamic

relations with China, the political

SECRET

australia" period

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period will con time

to main short Voo.

Women Wathen

11/8

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