TNAG-0571-FCO40-704-Planning-paper-on-Hong-Kong-1976 — Page 62

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We thus carry a responsibility to the inhabitants to maintain in their interests what we have created and encouraged them

to rely on insofar as this is possible taking into account that the colony is militarily indefensible. In any consideration of British

policy, therefore, one of the most important factors must be the interests of the people who live and work there.

7. If we are to discharge our responsibilities to the people of Hong Kong, we should take account of their own desires and feelings as well as of those which we (with a wholly different European attitude to many things) believe that they ought to have. principal concerns seem to be:-

(a)

Their

confidence in their Government, in their own future,

and in HMG's commitment, as a guarantee of both;

(b) assured employment, with a high level of disposable income;

(c)

personal safety (from violent crime);

(a) adequate housing, within the means of the poor;

(e)

decent educational, medical and health services;

(£) a social welfare net which will prevent the old, handicapped, sick and unfortunate from falling below the subsistence level.

There has been no observable desire among the Chinese population for representative institutions. This is perhaps understandable given that China has never had a democratic form of government, and that a large proportion of Hong Kong's population are immigrants from the mainland. However, more recently there has been evidence of a desire for a greater access to the governmont and a greater say in issues that affect them.

8. The great majority of the inhabitants of Hong Kong are strongly opposed to any significant change in its present status as a colony. Even the communist cadres wish, for a variety of motives, the present status to continue. The inhabitants of Hong Kong are not hostile to social improvements or to developments which will improve the

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