TNAG-0943-FCO40-1162-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1980 — Page 226

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extraterritorial rights in China and provided for the transfer to the Republican Government of the administration and control of the diplomatic quarter at Beijing (Peking), the International Settlements at Shanghai and Xiamen (Amoy) and the British Concessions at Tianjin (Tientsin) and Guangzhou (Canton). A similar treaty between the United States and China was signed on the same day in Washington.

15. These two treaties were seen by the Chinese as bringing an end not only to extraterritoriality in China, but also the end of the "treaty system" itself. General Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek).described the "new equal treaties" with Britain and America as "a model for equal and mutually

beneficial treaties between China and other free and independent nations". The point to note in the negotiations with the Chinese Government during this period is that questions on the status of Hong Kong as a whole were kept quite distinct from extraterritorial issues. Its status as a British Crown Colony, in the first instance founded on the cession of territory, placed it outside the normal category of "unequal treaties". Nevertheless, in the course of the negotiations leading up to the conclusion of the Treaty of Chungking, the Chinese Government did make a request for the termination of the lease of the

New Territories.

16.

Encouraged in the belief that the United States would exert its influence to persuade Britain to return its colonial possessions in the Far East, the Chinese Government came to regard the retrocession of Hong Kong after the war almost as a matter of course. The Republican Government therefore not only proposed the termination of the New Territories lease but also questioned the status of Hong Kong as a whole. HMG, on the other hand, reserved its position and gave only informal indications that the

question of the lease might be re-considered after the war with Japan was won. In the event, Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) did revert to the matter in a statement before

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