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RECOMMENDATION
3. I recommend that we agree that the Governor may respond
to the Chinese approach on the lines of paragraph 5 of his telegram No. 330, and that Mr. Cater should be his representative.
Commonwealth Office concur.
Mr. Rodgers, with whom I discussed the matter, has authorised
me to say that he is in agreement with the recommendation.
BACKGROUND AND ARGUMENT
5+ Sir Donald Hopson was summoned by Vice Foreign Minister Lo Kuei-po on 8 March to receive a statement to the effect that
the Hong Kong situation was the cruz of Sino-British relations; that the British Government must reply to various demande put forward by the Chinese Government on this subject and that only thereafter would it be possible to discuss "secondary matters" e.g. restoration of normal movement for staff of Missions and the
settlement of the case of Mr. Grey, the Reuters correspondent detained in Peking freking telegram No. 176). It is difficult
to assess what the Chinese intended by the statement.
(a) By Chinese standards it was moderate in tone. {2}
It asked us,
not to accept but to "reply to" the various demands made
to us.
It included the first reference to Mr. Brown's
letter of last August to Ch'en Yi, the Chinese Foreign Kinister. It might conceivably be that the Chinese
intended to put on record their stand of principle over Hong Kong but that, while paying lip service to that principle, they would nevertheless be prepared to make some progress on "secondary matters".
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ན གས རཙ'ཎཾ ཙ ཙ
/(b)