TNAG-0943-FCO40-1162-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1980 — Page 105

SECRET

DSR 11C

d'Affaires (Mr O'Neill) that China wished to establish an "Office of a

Commissioner for Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China" in

Hong Kong. The request was given full and careful consideration in London

and Hong Kong, but it was decided that HMG should give no definitive reply

for the moment.

6.

Although this was the first official approach, the Chinese Premier

Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai) appears to have raised the question informally

on a number of previous occasions, in particular during his discussions with

the Governor of Hong Kong on the latter's unofficial visit to Peking in

October 1955. On these occasions and in all subsequent approaches, Chinese

officials deliberately avoided references to the appointment of a consular

officer to Hong Kong. The title of Commissioner seems to have been chosen

by the CPG (as by the Nationalist Government before it) in order to avoid

the admission, which would follow from the title Consul-General, that

Hong Kong is foreign and not Chinese territory. The problem from the

Hong Kong Government's point of view was that the title Commissioner had

been used to describe appointments within China. The position of the

British Consul-General in Shanghai as an office of the Chargé d'Affaires

and not a Consulate was used to support the Chinese request for the appoint-

ment of a special commissioner rather than a Consul-General in Hong Kong.

The position of the Shanghai office was specifically referred to by Chinese

officials on a number of occasions, though not always on a strictly

parallel basis.

>

7. During 1957 Zhou Enlai reverted to the subject on two occasions.

first was during an interview with a Labour MP, Mr Warbey. A report of

which was published in the Daily Herald on 12 June. Zhou apparently

referred to the precedent of the Nationalist Chinese representative in

/Hong Kong

The

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