Immediate
SECRET
106
FOREIGN OFFICE, S.W.1.
30 April, 1968.
Year Bunny.
At the meeting of the Defence Review Working Party on 26 April to discuss OPDO (DR) (68)5(Revise), the Long-Term Study on Hong Kong, I undertook to let you have for your consideration redrafts for a couple of passages. These are set out below, along with some other minor suggestions.
Paragraph 4, last sentence:
Substitute: "Recent events have demonstrated that members of the British Mission and also other British subjects in China can be held as hostages by the Chinese for the purpose of securing concessions in Hong Kong.
Paragraph 35
Second sentence.
Delete "inspired by Mao".
Last sentence
Substitute: "The present policy of putting the Cultural Revolution into low gear and working towards a restoration of order and stability and the rehabilitation of the governmental and party structure suggests that the second group is in the ascendant; but it is in no way certain that they will in all circumstances prevail."
Paragraph 48(c)
Second sentence
Delete "(as could be the case any time after 1980)".
Paragraph 49
Last sentence
Delete "have not been seriously impaired" and substitute "can be maintained".
Paragraph 70
Third sentence:
After "in the 1980s" add "or even earlier".
W. S. Carter, Esq., C.V.O.,
Commonwealth Office,
Hong Kong Department.
SECRET
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