My dear John,
CONFIDENTIAL
! RECEIVED IN
ARCHIVES No 31 11 JUL 1968
Enti
15 HKDyres SADDUCE
Office of the British
Chargé d'Affaires,
SEAD
W. Diph
PEKING.
iv.July, 1968.
Easter Depu
NEAD panny
M
We have made a digest of more items from the Chinese confidential bulletin Reference News which is circulated to selected cadres on a confidential basis. This time our digest (No. 10) covers the period from 16 May to 5 June.
2.
You will recall that in this
The bulletin continues to give a reasonably full survey of the Paris talks. As you can see, the main features of the first six official meetings have been covered, though as the proceedings became more repetitive the space devoted to them gradually decreased. This coverage still makes a strong contrast with the official press which continues to ignore the talks completely. Nevertheless, cadres in the know will realise full well the implications of such speeches by Ministers as, for example, Chou En-lai's at the reception for President Nyerere on 18 June. speech Chou argued that the United States was pursuing its "peace talks swindle" in an attempt to gain at the conference table what it could not gain on the battlefield. A reasonably intelligent cadre could have no illusions from the explicit accounts of the talks in the bulletin and the covert references to them in public speeches about the fact that the Chinese Government is completely opposed to the negotiations, Incidentally, the organisers of the demonstrations which took place outside the Vietnamese Consulate in Canton, and possibly also in Nanning and Kunming, (our telegram No. 569) may well have been informed about the Paris talks through the Reference News, though they would naturally require specific central approval for the demonstrations.
3. You will have noticed the two articles on Hong Kong featuring the taxi drivers' strike and the performance at Lowu on 29 May. Neither of these incidents was revealed in the open Chinese press, so that I presume the aim of the reports was to show cadres that the pot was still bubbling in Hong Kong, however slowly.
4. I was particularly struck in my reading of the bulletin
Since we by the prominence given to the unrest in France. began receiving the bulletin regularly in January I have never seen one subject being given such immense coverage.
It shows,
I think, the very great interest which the Chinese have been taking in the disturbances in France and other Western countries.
5. I am copying this letter to Roy Spendlove in Washington, Robin McLaren and Ashworth in Hong Kong, Wade-Gery in Saigon, Stewart in Hanoi, Fielding in Paris, Reg Hibbert in Singapore, Baker-Bates in Tokyo, Peter Hewitt in Canberra, Frank Brewer in J.R.D., Kathleen Draycott in I.R.D., and Chancery at Moscow.
Your ever,
Leavard
(L. V. Appleyard)
J. D. I. Boyd, Esq.,
FAR EASTERN DEPARTMENT.
CONFIDENTIAL