TNAG-2239-FCO40-3218-Future-of-Hong-Kong-Royal-Navy-presence-1991 — Page 205

SECRET UK EYES A LOCSEN

placed great emphasis on the need to demonstrate its ability to act autonomously in all areas of activity which would fall to the SAR Government after 1997. This applied particularly to the ability of the RHKP, unaided by the military, to handle any and every internal security problem in the years before 1997. At the same time, the HKG still hoped that the example set by the British Garrison in its last years, in terms of both its size and its location, could influence the PRC to maintain as small a Garrison as possible, and one based outside

the urban areas. This pointed to a Garrison in the last couple of years of British rule which would have been no more than symbolic of

British commitment and sovereignty.

22. It is also relevant that at the time the 1987 Outline Withdrawal

Plan was being formulated, the Defence Cost Agreement (DCA) of 1981 had still to be renegotiated and sensitivities on funding influenced

views about the future shape and size of the Garrison.

23. The events in China in 1989, and their aftermath, together with

other developments, have led the HKG to the belief that the Garrison

should remain "stronger for longer" than it envisaged in 1987. These other developments include the negotiation of a DCA satisfactory to

both parties which extends to the end of the period of British sovereignty; the funding of the British Garrison has, for the moment

at least, become a less sensitive issue. Meanwhile incidents at sea

have involved challenges, of varying degrees of seriousness, to British sovereignty by Chinese Patrol Vessels in Hong Kong waters.

This coincides with the failure to achieve the expansion of the Police, and supporting Services, at a rate which was assumed in the

original plan. At the same time it is now clear (see paragraph 20

above) that there is little either the British

Hong Kong

Governments can

can do, by way of reduction and redeployment of

of the

British Garrison or by exhortation or any other means, to influence

the size or deployment of the PLA in Hong Kong after 1997.

24.

or

Moreover, while it remains as true now as in 1987 that confidence

Page 9 of 47 pages

LOCSEN

UK EYES A SECRET