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N.C.N.A. report would seem to indicate that there is little
prospect of his early release.
In their present mood it seems
unlikely that the release of the remaining detainees or anything
short of the release of all twelve news workers would satisfy
the Chinese. The readiest deduction is that they intend to
hang on to Mr. Grey in the hope that pressure will mount for
us to make concessions. The assessment of Chinese intentions,
based on both overt and covert indications, which the Governor
of Hong Kong has promised for about 13 January may help us
towards a firm judgement.
9.
Meanwhile, the Governor of Hong Kong has made his
contribution to "de-escalation" by his decision to speed up
the rate of release of detainees: he forecasts that by the
end of this week there will be only six in detention.
Publicity
of Reuters
10. I discussed the publicity aspects fully with Mr. Long/on
20 December. He said that he accepted our thesis that we
should now as far as possible restrain publicity about Mr. Grey
in the belief that the Chinese would be more likely to release
him when not evidently under pressure. He said that Reuters
did not intend to take any new initiative for further publicity
but he stressed that neither Reuters nor ourselves had now much
control over the publicity aspect. I have kept in touch with
Mr. Long since. He now tells me that his own journalists in
the Reuters branch of the National Union of Journalists are
pressing for a meeting which might result in a resolution
6.
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