TNAG-0568-FCO40-701-Planning-paper-on-Hong-Kong-1976 — Page 88

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(i)

UK withdrawal and incorporation in China ± 1997.

Prospects: Remote unless the ideologues take over in Peking and disastrous if they do. Impossible to announce to population in Hong Kong and impossible to implement even gradually without agreement becoming obvious there. Grave political problems for

HMG.

(j) Forcible Chinese takeover± 1997.

Prospects: Remote (as at (h) above) and particularly

Likely to reduce the

disadvantageous economically to China.

immigration liability on the UK but a moral, diplomatic and political defeat of incalculable dimensions cf. Singapore 1941. Impossible to contemplate.

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