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4.
In the first clear statement of Chinese views on the status of
Hong Kong (People's Daily 8 March 1963), it is interesting to note that
in the "category of unequal treaties left over by history", Hong Kong,
Kowloon and Macao are listed as separate questions. In a statement which
parallelled this view in many other respects, Kowloon received no mention
in Huang Hua's letter of 8 March 1972 to the UN Committee on
decolonisation.
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5.
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Premier Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai) also drew attention to the dis-
tinction between the leased and the ceded parts of Hong Kong during a
conversation with Mr Malcolm MacDonald in October 1971 Zhou recognised
the interdependence of the two parts of the Colony and suggested that .
Hong Kong would not be a viable administrative or economic unit without
the New Territories. Zhou indicated that the year 1898 was a significant
date in Chinese history, and that the present Chinese Government had no
intention of seeking to get back Hong Kong until the expiry of the New
Territories lease.
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6.
Since 1971, Chinese attitudes towards the significance of the year
1997 seem less clear. Questions on the leased territory appear to have
been subsumed within the broader issue of the status of Hong Kong as a
whole. Even in 1997 conditions may not be ripe for the recovery of
Hong Kong. Chinese officials demonstrated a concern to avoid connecting
the recovery of Hong Kong to any particular time-scale.
American source has provided an example of this concern.
tour by US Congressmen in 1976, Congressman Wolff had said in public that
Chinese officials had told him Hong Kong would revert back to China when
the lease expired. On 6 May 1976 a First Secretary, Shen Rouyun
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