TNAG-0574-FCO40-707-Hong-Kong-annual-review-for-1975-1976 — Page 48

5.

3.

CONFIDENTIAL

After 2 years of constant police effort,

innovation and expansion, and of civilian education

and organisation, signs of tangible results are at

last becoming visible, and the fast and apparently

inexorable rise in crime over the last 7 or 8 years

has been halted. In view of the unacceptably high

level at which it is running this is little consolation

to the population, and one of our top priorities this

year will be to reduce it.

6.

These exceptionally difficult two years

offered a wide range of opportunities for exploitation

and trouble-making by Peking. But though the

communists often attempted to make capital at the

Government's expense, they consistently avoided con-

frontation, and Chinese officials did their best to

co-operate to achieve friendly and constructive official

relations. No doubt any trouble in Hong Kong would

have been contrary to China's wider financial interests

and inconsistent with her present external posture.

Nevertheless I think that the excellent state of Anglo-

Chinese relations was relevant. I also believe that

the near-normalisation of working relations between the

Hong Kong Government and Chinese officials in Hong Kong

CONFIDENTIAL