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CONFTINTIAL
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assertion of sovereignty over Hong Kong. The research so far undertaken suggests, in fact, that we may well have been as much concerned in the past as we are at present to avoid making a public assertion of sovereignty. There appen to end explanatics)
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attitude The vet s that there seem to have been doubts from time to time about whether IMG-regards itself as exercising sovereignty over Hong Hong] [As recently published British
cond World Wair,
documents of the 1940s have revealed, the Governments of the United States and China pressed HMG not to reassert her clain to Hong Kong as a Colony at the end of the Second World War, but to give up sovereignty there. Moreal specifically, Mr Eden, es Foreign Secretary, was advised by Foreign Office and Colonial Office officials in
November 1942 to agree that the UK should not regard the maintenance of British sovereignty over Hong Kong as a mafter beyond the scope of "discussion". Jihter, both Mr Churchill and Mr Attlee made it clear that they did not wish to give up Hong Kong and in August 1845, with the
But defeat of Japan, the newly re-established authorities in Hong Kong were instructed to restore "British sovereignty". over the Colony. Subsequetly, Foreign Office posts were
advised to take the line that, while British possession of Hong Kong needed "no apology or justification", the question of its status should be mentioned as little as possible. This attitude was again reflected in a guidance telegram to Foreign Office posts in July 1964 which advised
Farad that "the question of sovereignty over the territories
of Hong Kong is not entirely free from doubt.
ver
It
is not considered advisable to make a wholesale denial of
the Chinese claim to sovereignty". The debate about whether ING secs itself as exercising sovereignty over. Hong Kong) was revived in 1972 when the question of answering the letter of 8 March from the Chinese Permanent Representativ to the United Nations Secretary-General, was under consideratio (This is the letter referred to in Mr Hooley's Question.).. There is evidence that One reason why Sir Colin Crowe's
Straight forward
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1
eventual reply did mt contain an assertion of sovereignty was that there were doubts on this score. The department's
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