TNAG-1037-FCO40-1287-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 114

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DSR 11C

ultimate Chinese sovereignty over the New Territories should

this not present serious legal difficulties if they could be

treated in isolation.

However, administratively the Territory

of Hong Kong constitutes a single unit and, in any case,

the

Chinese (who maintain that all the Treaties were unequal' and

thus that all the areas in question are equally Chinese would

no doubt require a declaration covering the whole Territory.

15. A declaration recognising residual Chinese sovereignty

over Hong Kong Island and Kowloon would derogate from the

1

cession of the areas concerned under the Treaty of 1842 and

the Convention of 1860. Such a change could, of course, be

made through a new Treaty but the Chinese are unlikely to

agree to that. The case of Macao provides only a partial

analogy. The Treaty of 1887 did not formally cede that

Territory to Portugal. It placed it under 'perpetual

occupation and government by Portugal, as any other Port-

uguese possession'; but by an additional Article Portugal

undertook 'never to alienate Macao without previous agree-

ment with China'. This clearly implied a limitation on

absolute Portuguese sovereignty and probably facilitated

a confidential understanding believed to have been concluded

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