En Clair
PRIORITY PEKING ΤΟ
Talno. 311
FOREIGN OFFICE
21 March 1967
以
U ASSIFIED
Addressed to Foreign Office telegram 311 of 21 March. Repeated for information Priority to Hong Kong and Routine Washington, and to POLAD Singapore.
I was summoned yesterday evening (20 March) to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to receive a formal protest Note from a Vice- Director of the Western European Department, Tang Hai-kuang, about United States warships entering Hong Kong.
Following is text of Note.
"In the short space of two and a half months since the beginning of this year, United States warships which take a direct part in the war of aggression against Viet Nam have entered Hong Kong for seventy to eighty vessel/times with the connivance of the British Government. They include eircraft carriers "Franklin D. Roosevelt", "Bennington", "Kitty Hawk", amphibious assault ship "Iwo Jima" cruiser "Long Beach" and the flag ship of the Seventh Fleet, "Providence". On 14 March, the nuclear powered United States aircraft carrier "Enterprise" again sailed into Hong Kong. These United States warships have been engaged in a series of war preparations in Hong Kong.
"At present, the United States is frantically expanding its war of aggression against Viet Nam. The United States aggressors are sanguinarily massacring the Vietnamese people, they have bombed and sunk Chinese fishing boats, thus incurring numerous debts of blood to the Chinese people. The British Government's unscrupulous connivance at the entry of United States aggressor warships into Hong Kong to make various war preparations constitutes a grave provocation to the people of China, Viet Nam and South East Asia. Against this, the Chinese Government lodges a strong protest with the British Government.
"In its Notes of 1 September, 1965, and 1 February, 1966, the Chinese Government lodged strong protests with the British Government against the provision of Hong Kong by the British Government to the United States as a base of operation in its war of aggression against Viet Nam. However, far from stopping the use of Hong Kong by the United States for various war preparations, the British Government has acted more energetically as an accomplice of the United States in its war of aggression against Viet Nam. It must be pointed out that the more the United States expands its war of aggression the more dismal will be its defeat.
/In servilely tailing
L
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