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Office of the British Charge
d'Affaires
Peking
5 August, 1969
I am grateful for the additional information about the Waterworks Trade Union officials given in Hong Kong Tel. No. 149 and for the assurance that advanced warning will, if at all possible, be given about any future cases in which communist sympathisers are prosecuted.
2.
As you will appreciate, the LIC reports referred to gave little detailed background of the cases, or any indication that they might end in the imprisonment of those concerned. This is of course not the function of such reports. It is for this reason that we should like to have separate warning. It is not for us to question the rightness of a particular decision. It may, however, happen that a prosecution comes at a particularly delicate moment in our relations with the Chinese, and if we had forewarning of it, it might either be possigle to secure a delay or at any rate be prepared for whatever unfortunate consequences might follow.
3.
I am sending a copy of this letter to James Hurray in Far Eastern Department.
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(J. B. Denson)
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A. F. Maddocks, Esq.,
Hong Kong.
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