Source:
https://scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/2160310/how-britains-post-war-debt-turned-small-us-outpost-hong-kong
Hong Kong/ Politics

How Britain’s post-war debt turned a small US outpost in Hong Kong into a staging area for its cold war operations in Asia

Declassified British government documents show negotiations that eventually led to 999-year lease for consulate in city began in 1946, and governor Alexander Grantham warned against granting it in 1949

Declassified British government documents show negotiations that eventually led to 999-year lease for consulate in city began in 1946, and governor Alexander Grantham warned against granting it in 1949

The diplomatic negotiations between the American and Hong Kong governments which eventually led to the US consulate’s highly unusual 999-year lease in a prime city location actually began in 1946, declassified British government documents obtained by the Post show.

That was three years before the Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China, and a year after Britain and the United States signed an agreement under which Britain would give money to the US for the purposes of acquiring land in the UK and its colonies, according to the archived documents.