British Foreign Office was told to size up the risk of Chinese takeover of Hong Kong ahead of 1997, archives show
- Hong Kong governor Chris Patten reported to London in 1993 that the PLA’s Guangzhou military command had been tasked with drawing up contingency plans
- Former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping had previously made the threat that China might take the city in a 1982 meeting with Margaret Thatcher
The British Foreign Office was told to assess the risk of a possible military intervention by Beijing to retake Hong Kong before 1997, newly declassified British files have revealed.
The call came as China ramped up attacks on the city’s last governor, Chris Patten, after he unveiled an electoral reform package which saw Beijing call him a “sinner for 1,000 years”. Patten reported to London in January 1993 the PLA’s Guangzhou military command had been tasked with drawing up contingency plans for an early takeover of the then British colony.
Patten’s proposal to give 2.7 million Hong Kong residents the vote, unveiled in his maiden policy address in October 1992, had angered Beijing. The British government’s fear of a military takeover of Hong Kong before the expiry of the lease of much of the city’s territory in 1997 and its contingency plan for the worst-case scenario were documented in the files newly released by the National Archives in London.
In a briefing paper for British prime minister John Major a day before the meeting of the defence and overseas policy committee under the cabinet, Pauline Neville-Jones, head of the defence and overseas secretariat in the cabinet office wrote that even if Patten’s assessment was that Hong Kong’s Legislative Council would eventually support his proposals, the committee would need to consider what to do if the situation worsened subsequently.
“If endorsement by Legco looks uncertain should the governor stage an orderly retreat, or risk being voted down?” she wrote.