TNAG-0943-FCO40-1162-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1980 — Page 237

CONFIDENTIAL

th questions of Hong Kong and Macao, the Chinese Government has consistently held that they should be settled in an appropriate way when conditions are ripe". The sense of urgency and anti-imperialism apparent in the years of the Cultural Revolution is noticeably toned down and this extremely vague statement on the manner and the timing of any settlement of the question of Hong Kong, served to express the essence of Chinese attitudes towards the future of Hong Kong.

33. A more relaxed attitude towards asserting

Chinese claims to Hong Kong was also evident in a "World Atlas" published in Peking in February 1972. The land boundary between Hong Kong and Guangdong (Kwangtung) Province as well as the maritime limits were for the first time marked on the map of

SE China, although the key describes these borders as "regional boundaries" or "diqujie" (ti-chu-chich) rather than national boundaries or "guojie" (kuo-chieh). [Indeed, when the 1977 "Hong Kong Annual Report" (published by the Hong Kong Government Information Services) carried maps inside the front

and back covers describing the border between the

New Territories and Guangdong Province as an "international boundary", or "guojie" in the Chinese edition, a formal complaint was lodged on 10 June 1977 in Hong Kong by local officials of the NCNA under instruction from Peking. ]The accompanying text refers to British "occupation" in 1842 and 1860, and

the lease of 1898. but makes no demand for the realisation of Chinese sovereignty over the

territories concerned (c.f. "Provincial Atlas of the People's Republic of China", 1950, see above paragraph 22).

34.

There nevertheless continued a fundamental

Chinese belief that, whoever excrcised the actual administration of Hong Kong and Macao, the territory remained an inalienable part of China. It has been argued that in the early 1970s Chinose legislators took the view that China had the power to legislate for Hong Kong and Macao. The argument is expounded in an article in the Hong Kong Law Journal 1974

Zentitled.

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