CO_968_580_DEFENCE_OF_HONG_KONG_1957_1959 — Page 113

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FOREIGN OFFICE, S.W.1. December, 1957

(on; on FED 82/454/01 (75))

Now that the Chiefs of Staff have approved the Joint Intelligence Committee report "The Subversive and Military Threats to Hong Kong from Communist China up to the end of 1962" (JIC (57) 114 (Final Revise)) we are looking into the second part of the Anglo-American Working Group's study - Measures to deal with the Threat. We do not think that action on the latter need be held up until our threat estimate

10568 and that of the United States have been reconciled by the

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DEF

75/01/013

Working Group. The two estimates appear at first sight to be very broadly in agreement, and we therefore consider that the J.I.C. report can be used for planning purposes.

2.

The measures can be classified under two headings: military and political. We shall approach the Colonial Office about the political measures, and we should be grateful if you could ask the Joint Planning Staff to prepare a report on joint military measures. A lot of ground is already covered by COS (57) 131 of June 5, 1957 "Combined United Kingdom/United States planning for the defence of Hong Kong", which deals with measures to confront overt Chinese aggression. The J.I.C. report, however, deals also with other types of threat, (summarised in

paragraph 2 of the report), and we should be grateful if any appropriate military measures to deal with these could also be considered.

3. When the report we are requesting is completed, we shall, I think, have to submit to Ministers the political assumptions on which it is based. I suggest that these should continue to be as stated in paragraph 4 at Annex to COS (57) 131.

(R.W.J. Hooper)

Air Commodore D.J.P. Lee, C.B., C.B.E.,

Chiefs of Staff Secretariat,

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE.

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