TNAG-1238-FCO40-1551-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 159

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FUTURE OF HONG KONG: POSSIBLE PRECEDENTS

1.

When w

ANTONY ACLAND The PUS asked us last month to examine the Anglo-Egyptian condominium over the Sudan in order to see what lessons there might be for Hong Kong. I attach a paper on this by Research Department. A paper on the Panama Canal Zone is also attached.

Sudan

2.

The condominium forms a precedent of a sort for the kind of arrangement we would like to see for Hong Kong. It involved de facto British control over a territory over which another (adjacent) state had a claim (though not apparently acknowledged sovereignty). However the circumstances were fundamentally different `from those of the Hong Kong case today. Britain's dominance in the Sudan resulted from her acknowledged imperial position. (The preamble to the Convention refers to the ''right of conquest''). We can exercise no such type of influence over China.

3.

The Sudan arrangement contained many elements of a condominium. At the same time our dominant position ensured that in practice our authority over the territory was absolute. However the same formula applied to Hong Kong would clearly result in an unworkable division of power.

4.

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Nevertheless there are some details of the Sudan arrangement which might be borrowed for the Hong Kong case. Examples are:

(i) The use of flags side by side;

(ii) No Egyptian laws to apply without special decree; (iii) (much less likely) The Governor General to be appointed

by the Khedive on the recommendation of HMG.

Panama

5. The political atmosphere surrounding the signature of the treaties on the Panama Canal in September 1977 was in way rather more analogous to the Hong Kong situation. Here we had a Third World country ''recovering'' its sovereignty from a former imperial power. But of course the American influence in Central America remained very much greater than our own in the Far East today Again there are some detailed points which

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