
UK feared mass Hong Kong exodus in handover run-up, planned for ‘Armageddon scenario'
Advertisement
The British national archive documents date back to 1989 in the period immediately preceding and following the Tiananmen Square crackdown. A number of scenarios and recommendations for UK authorities were outlined in the event Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule triggered an exodus of people from the city.
The documents, which were made public on Tuesday UK time, stated that the United Kingdom could 'not handle a mass evacuation alone' and that other countries would need to help, highlighting the United States as 'particularly important'.
Repeated references were made to the 'Official Group on Contingency Planning for Hong Kong', which was said to have been formed following then prime minister Margaret Thatcher's meeting with the governor of Hong Kong on June 8, 1989.
The governor at the time was David Wilson.
Advertisement
The internal communications, labelled 'secret', categorised the plan into three scenarios – green, amber and red.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


AllAfrica
15 hours ago
- AllAfrica
Northern Mariana Islands lose their last best hope
I was in awe of Arnold Palacios, who passed away on July 23. Having spent a good part of my career dealing with public and private corruption, I never once saw a top official ask to be investigated and mean it. That takes courage and, ultimately, a deep love for one's constituents and country. Imagine, for example, the mayor of Chicago asking the feds to come and examine the city's books. That request will never happen. But it did happen in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Corruption is, of course, not rare in CNMI, and no sane person pretends otherwise. Governor Palacios' own words tell his story. In a presentation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington in 2024, he described how, when he came into office, he tried to find out what happened to around $1.6 billion in federal funding (CARES, ARPA, etc) that had been given to the CNMI, (population around 45,000) during the pandemic era. As he said: 'the last thing we want to do, or want to see, is for the CNMI community to suffer over a long period of time because of some of the careless squandering, or even criminal squandering, of resources that were given to us by the federal government. We saw it, I saw it, a lot of people in the community saw it happening. And so, we wanted that to be validated by a robust financial investigation. We needed to come clean. I wasn't about to cover up all these things.' The governor repeatedly asked federal agencies to help. On April 24, 2025, he asked CNMI Del. Kimberlyn King-Hinds to ask FBI Director Kash Patel to do 'intensive investigations of public corruption' in CNMI, mentioning he has 'considerable evidence to provide.' In the FDD interview, he said the situation left him feeling like 'John the Baptist out in the desert. That's how lonely it has been.' That's also astonishing bravery. Indeed, Arnold Palacios' briefing and comments at FDD should be required viewing for all elected members of Congress and state legislatures in the United States. A word about Director Patel's shutting down investigations into former CNMI Governor Ralph Torres, the Imperial Pacific casino and related matters in July 2025 was perplexing and stupid. This decision needs to be reexamined. There's more to all this than just 'local' corruption. Governor Palacios recognized the threat posed by China to CNMI and the United States. How right was he? The US Congress' China Select Committee, which has access to 'all the intelligence,' issued a rare statement of condolence on learning of Governor Palacios' death, saying in part, 'He was a devoted public servant and a true patriot who courageously stood against Chinese coercion, steadfastly defending the sovereignty of the CNMI and the American homeland. His principled leadership and unwavering dedication to his people will leave a lasting legacy and will not be forgotten.' Chinese investment always appears as a panacea solving one's economic woes, but it invariably leads to corruption, crime and a local constituency that is beholden to China's interests. You would think CNMI's long experience with Chinese casinos—most recently Imperial Pacific on Saipan, which came after the earlier garment industry debacle—might have opened some eyes. Still, there's a push for more and more and unvetted, or poorly vetted, Chinese investment in the CNMI, as if there are no dangers and no alternatives, but there are. This is all part of China's political warfare intended to subvert societies and to insert Chinese influence. Get in the way and expect to be fiercely attacked, as Gov. Palacios was, and as former Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo and former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani can attest. Chinese proxies are rife in the CNMI, throughout the Pacific and in Washington DC itself. They've been in place for years and their tentacles are everywhere. Now, the one man who had the character, inside experience and clout to stop them in CNMI is gone. There will be plenty of crocodile tears about Palacios' passing in certain quarters but, if there's one thing Chinese proxies hate, it's transparency and clarity. Palacios scared them. They are no doubt glad he is gone. Expect the clamoring for 'China investment' to ramp up soon. If China's proxies are close enough to the levers, they may even ground down the CNMI economy to justify more Chinese access as 'the only way out.' That would be Beijing's standard operating procedure. Hopefully, Governor Arnold Palacios was not the CNMI's last best hope. And instead, we are his last best hope. Let's see if Governor Palacios' successors take up his calls for serious US government-led investigations into the corruption that has squandered CNMI citizens' prosperity for too long while lining a select few pockets in CNMI and elsewhere. If they instead declare, 'let sleeping dogs lie,' or 'let's just move along,' or 'it's the culture,' then you'll know they were, and are, in on it as well. That shows contempt for the CNMI and its citizens, for whom Arnold Palacios put his life on the line. Governor Palacios, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Colonel Grant Newsham is the author of 'When China Attacks: A Warning to America.' A retired US Marine, he served in the Indo-Pacific for decades and was instrumental in establishing Japan's amphibious force. As a US foreign service officer, he covered a number of regions, including East and South Asia, and specialized in insurgency, counterinsurgency and commercial matters. This article first appeared on Pacific Island Times and is republished with permission. Read the original here.


AllAfrica
17 hours ago
- AllAfrica
Eye on rare earths, Trump handing Myanmar to China
The US Treasury Department's decision to lift sanctions on allies of Myanmar's military junta last Friday (July 25) marks a stark reversal of decades-long American foreign policy. These sanctions, imposed by the Biden administration on the anniversary of the 2021 coup, were a gesture of solidarity with Myanmar's pro-democracy movement and a country that has endured relentless bombing and repression at the hands of a brutal military regime. Lifting these sanctions marks the latest episode of 'Trump's craven war on Myanmar.' And they hand China yet another strategic victory in Southeast Asia. From a moral standpoint, this move is sadly unsurprising. Trump has already abandoned Ukraine to Russia's onslaught, advocated for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and is actively dismantling what remains of American democracy. But this is not just a moral failure; it is a strategic blunder of the highest order. The rationale behind the policy shift remains opaque – the US government has offered no explanation. But the timing is curious. Just days earlier, Congress passed three bipartisan bills reaffirming support for Myanmar's resistance to military rule and pledging continued financial sanctions against the junta. Junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing had also just lavished praise on Donald Trump during trade negotiations. Perhaps this is merely another instance of Trump's foreign policy being steered by personal flattery and narcissism. But the motives behind this move appear more calculated. Business lobbyists seem to have persuaded Trump that Myanmar's rare earth metals, vital for everything from smartphones to missile systems, could be a strategic asset for the US. Indeed, Myanmar has emerged as a key global supplier of these critical minerals, especially after China curtailed its own environmentally destructive mining operations and turned to Myanmar to fill the gap. But here's the catch: Myanmar's rare earth mines are not controlled by the junta. They are under the authority of powerful ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) that govern territory along the Chinese border. The Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), one of the world's oldest rebel movements, seized what may be the world's largest heavy rare earth mines last year. This development has not gone unnoticed in Washington. Some lobbyists are now advancing two proposals: either the US should work directly with the KIO to extract these resources, or it should broker a bilateral peace deal between the KIO and the junta to enable joint exploitation. The first idea is logistically absurd. Kachin State is landlocked and surrounded by junta-controlled territory, war zones with the presence of a myriad of other armed groups, remote regions of northeastern India, and China. The second proposal is even more misguided. It reflects the worldview of DC business lobbyists, who reduce a decades-old political movement to a mere business enterprise. If the KIO were motivated solely by profit, it would have already caved to Chinese pressure for a bilateral ceasefire. It has not, because its goals are political, not commercial. The KIO has long fought for autonomy and has been a key supporter of the countrywide resistance against the junta. Short of international recognition and the sale of sophisticated weapons, the US has little to offer that would make such a deal worthwhile. Certainly not enough to risk alienating China, whose relationship the KIO depends on for survival. Meanwhile, the sharpest increase in rare earth mining is occurring in areas controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Asia's most powerful non-state army. The group, which emerged from the remnants of the Communist Party of Burma, remains armed and supported by Beijing. The idea that the US could gain a meaningful foothold in Myanmar's rare earth sector is not just naïve; it is nonsensical. Worse, it risks playing directly into China's hands. Beijing already wields enormous influence over Myanmar. The brutal USAID cuts earlier this year have further strengthened China's position to manipulate Myanmar politics. The lifting of sanctions now risks cementing this dominance. Myanmar's generals will welcome the change. They will use it to legitimize their planned sham elections and bolster their propaganda, both at home and abroad. But they will not abandon China, which remains their most reliable source of weapons, funding and diplomatic cover. Meanwhile, the country's resistance movement, now controlling more than half of Myanmar's territory, has been left in the cold. Despite promises of non-lethal aid under the Burma Act, the Biden administration failed to deliver. Western support in general has been largely symbolic, limited to patchy sanctions, humanitarian relief, and words of sympathy. And now, even that symbolic support is being rolled back. After years of empty rhetoric, Myanmar's resistance fighters have little reason to trust the West. But this latest betrayal may force them to forge closer relations with China. This won't happen overnight. Beijing remains wary of the National Unity Government (NUG), formed by ousted lawmakers from the National League for Democracy. But among Myanmar's 20-plus EAOs, which field the strongest resistance armies, the calculus might shift. Some, like the UWSA, have long-standing ties to China. Others, like the KIO, have historically looked West. But the KIO is not a monolith. Like other EAOs, it is a complex political organisation comprising leaders with differing perspectives and strategic priorities. To some KIO leaders, reports that Trump plans to partner directly with the KIO in extracting rare earth minerals will surely sound appealing. We can expect them to use it in their own diplomatic strategy, including as leverage in relation to China. Ultimately, however, the KIO understands the futility of such misguided proposals, especially when they serve to ease pressure on the junta. Here too, Trump's policy then risks sidelining pro-Western voices and empowering those who favour closer ties with Beijing. This is the real danger of Trump's foreign policy. It is not simply immoral or incoherent. But it accelerates a tectonic shift in Southeast Asia, one that will leave China stronger, the US weaker and the people of Myanmar more isolated than ever. Dr David Brenner is associate professor in international relations at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Rebel Politics and has published widely on Myanmar's conflict and ethnic armed organizations.


South China Morning Post
17 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
China to convene gathering in October to discuss next 5-year plan
China's ruling Communist Party has set a date for a key annual conclave in October, with a main focus on deliberating the next five-year plan for the country's economic, political and social goals amid continued tension with the United States. The announcement came after a meeting of the Politburo on Wednesday that set the tone for the coming fourth plenary session to be attended by more than 370 Central Committee members of the party elite. The much-anticipated plenum will be held in Beijing, according to the official Xinhua news agency. No specific date was announced. In instructions on the new blueprint's formulation, President Xi Jinping said in May that the party's central leadership was 'organising the drafting of a proposal for the 15th five-year plan'. A one-month online public consultation on the formulation of the plan was also launched in May. According to official rules, the new five-year plan covering 2026-2030 must be endorsed by a plenary session of the party, after which it will be submitted to the annual legislative session in March for a final endorsement. China continues to face external uncertainties as it remains locked in a trade and tech rivalry with the United States. While Chinese and US negotiators have reached a series of agreements to halt an all-out trade war, most observers believe a protracted trade, tech and geopolitical competition between the world's two largest economies will continue to intensify.