Nuclear attack on China mulled during Cold War

Published 9:00 pm Friday, June 30, 2006

LONDON – Britain and the United States discussed the possible use of nuclear weapons against China if it moved to seize Hong Kong during the Cold War, according to documents released Friday.

Some leaders in London thought the only way to keep Hong Kong a British colony was to convince China that any attempt to take the territory back by force would trigger an American nuclear attack, according to the internal British government memos declassified and released by the National Archives.

“Our objective is to encourage the Chinese to believe that an attack on Hong Kong would involve U.S. nuclear retaliation,” Defense Minister Harold Watkinson wrote in a letter to Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.

Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842, and was returned to China in 1997.