garded by the Chinese as a useful lever against us,
verthe os their relatives have argued that it must
significant that their detention post-dates the
nvicti in the Hong Kong.courts of large numbors of
mmunist offenders. Moreover, the local communists in
ng Kong must surely hope that the Peking authorities
11 use the British subjects as a means of speeding up
e release of the prisoners in Hong Kong. The degreo support that they will receive from Peking in this
mains problematical. In any case you may be assured
at we are fully aware of the slippery slope on which
would be starting if in the interests of these
itish subjects we were to hold out any prospect
latsoever of concessiona over convicted prisonere in
ong Kong.
•
Indeed there appears to be close agreement among us
the handling of the cases of the long term prisonere,
agree that, on the assumption clearly still a valid
he-that the expulsion of prisoners to China remains
acceptable to the Chinese, there is little to be done
ithout crossing the limits of safety to which you ofer. (We are sure, however, that you would agree
hat it does not follow that we should abandon the self-
|aposed restraint that we have observed in such matters
a the communist press or education).
We agree that a further formal demand by the
hinese for the premature release of prisoners would ich increase our difficulties (although it can be
rgued that such a demand is already inherent in the
Five Demande"). It is however difficult to see how
Fest to play our hand to head this off. We agree that
la
r
: