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75751/02).
TOP SECRET AND GUARD Extract from Roo) on
Ref 75.5%.02.
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Extract from a/Secret and Guard personal letter from Sir Alexander Grantham to the Secretary of State dated
26th May, 1956.
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4.(i)It is assumed that an attack on Hong Kong would in itself precipitate a major war, and that this is the real safeguard against Chinese aggression. I question this assumption. If it has validity, it can rest only on the premiss that there would be a reasonably prolonged resistance, so that if hostilities continued, the Chinese would know that America and England would be bound to take up arms against aggression. If, however, the Colony could fall in 36 hours, and this is my interpretation of the C.B.F.'s appreciation, the issue could be settled before London and Washington had reacted. Faced with a fait accompli would the Allies take the responsibility of starting a full scale war with China? I doubt it. Consider the most probable set of circumstances; the Communists would turn on the heat internally - Chinese forces would line up on the frontier the major part of the garrsion would be fully committed in trying to maintain internal security at a time of their choosing the Chinese would march in on the pretext of restoring order and protecting their nationals from maltreatment. World opinion would never be mobilised to accept this as a casus belli, and the Chinese would know it. Having obtained their limited objective, the Chinese would readily make a detente to relax the world tension which they would have deliberately created beforehand, and everyone would welcome it. In the recent Singapore talks it was contended that the problems of external defence and internal security could not be separated. This contention is even more apposite to Hong Kong, where we have the only common British Frontier with a Communist Power.
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NOTE:
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The attached revised draft report will be placed on the Agenda of an early meeting of the Committee.
Ministry of Defence S.W.1.
14th June, 1956.
Ø JIC (56)50 (Revised Draft)
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Page 80 Page 80 of 154
THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
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