WBL 51-7433

NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN

Registry No.

SECURITY CLASSIFICATION

Top Secret.

Secret.

Confidential.

Restricted. Unclassified.

PRIVACY MARKING

In Confidence

DRAFT

To:-

Type 1 +

From

Telephone No. & Ext.

Department

All these youngsters are employed in the Frisons workshop. they have been offered

voluntary schooling in the young prisoners

конс

section, but only two of them have taken

Them

advantage of this offer. None of the five

prisoners has any contact with any older

prisoners.

As regards the penultimate paragraph of

your letter, it is not, perhaps, generally

realised that the cases of those British

subjects detained in China are by no means all

on a par with one another, and each one has

(where reasons have been gwen) been detained for different reas

reasons. However,

with the possible exception of the case of

Mr. Grey (the Reuters' correspondent detained

in Peking) there is no evidence whatever to

Perdetention & suggest that any of them is in any way linked

with events in Hong Kong; and the Chinese

themselves have never suggested such a

probably know connexion. As you may well be aware, a

number of nationals of other countries have

been detained by the Chinese during the same

period. You mention your belief that these

unfortunate people are being used as pawns by

the Chinese. If this is in fact the case, I

cannot imagine anything more calculated to

persuade the Chinese of the value to them of

holding such pawns (and possibly of acquiring

a few more if and when it suits them) than any

attempt on our part to set a price on their

heads.

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