Britain feared loss of confidence in Hong Kong thirty years ago

The British government has released previously secret documents revealing its fear of a collapse of confidence in Hong Kong thirty years ago when troubles from the Cultural Revolution in China spilled over into the then colony.

Five Hong Kong police officers had been shot dead at a border village.

But British defence chiefs were told by a Foreign Office representative that it would be entirely wrong to plan the evacuation of service families, because any leak of such a project would adversely affect confidence in Hong Kong.

Correspondents say the fact that little top-level political material on the crisis has yet been released is a sign of its delicacy.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service