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Flag E
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(b) On the other hand it was quite uncompromising in tone.
It would be imprudent therefore not to face up to the possibility that the Chinese meant exactly what they say, and that they are fully ready to hold our Mission
as hostages until we make concessions in Hong Kong.
5. Both Sir Donald Hopson (paragraph 5 of hia telegram No. 179) and the Governor (Hong Kong telegram No. 330) thought that the statement did not exclude the possibility that the Chinese might in practice be less inflexible than their words implied.
6. In the meantime, however, the position has been further complicated by various acta of unfriendliness on the part of the /
Chinese.
(b)
(a) On 16 March they announced that Mr. Watt, the engineer
from Vickers-Zimmer held in detention since last September,
had been sentenced to three years' imprisonment for espionage. (A West German held similarly was deported.) On 14 March they refused to accept at the frontier, and subsequently made a formal protest in Peking about, two communist film stars previously held in prison in Hong Kong whom the Hong Kong authorities were trying to deport
or "release to China”. We had bean testing to see whether the Chinese were prepared to co-operate in a face-saving arrangement which would enable us to meet their "demand" that political prisoners be released and cur own require- ment that they must not be released in Hong Kong before
their sentences had expired.
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