SECRET
designed to ensure his release by September of this year
without appearing to bend the law in a flagrant manner.
Essentially he plans to review all the cases of prisoners
sentenced to terms longer than four years.
All being
well, this should result in a reduction of Wong Chak's
sentence, though it may be some weeks before this can be
made public knowledge. We are, however, justified in
proceeding on the assumption that all eleven news workers
will now be out by mid-September.
It
7. We accept that the immediate release of all the news
workers would almost certainly result in the release of
Mr. Grey. Will this still be the case in September?
might be argued that they are a declining asset; that
their value to the Chinese diminishes as September approaches;
and that their release then would therefore be regarded by
the Chinese as of practically no value. However, our
experience of the Chinese suggests that they will not be
at a loss to present the release of the eleven, whenever
it comes, as a "victory". They will have prevailed to the
extent of having held on to Mr. Grey until we have "stopped
the persecution of patriotic news workers in Hong Kong".
While there has been some variation over numbers the Chinese
have always justified their detention of Mr. Grey exclusively
in the context of the treatment of their news workers in
Hong Kong. We think it unlikely that they would start,
after the release of the news workers, to hold him against
a wholly different category of prisoner.
ODURDT
18.
*