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The appointment of a Select Committee on Hong Kong might also create an unwelcome precedent in respect of other dependent territories, though I appreciate that Hong Kong could be regarded as a "special case" in this es in a number of other respects.
8.
The Hong Kong Government have expressed the hope that we will feel able to say, in response to any enquiries, that HMG sees no need for a Commission of Inquiry. I think that we should do so. I assume it would not be appropriate for us to express a view, at least in the first instance, on the appointment of a House of Commons Select Committee. However, by opposing the recommendations of a Commission of Inquiry, which the pamphlet sees as the first step towards a Select Committee, we would imply that we had serious reservations about it.
9. I recommend that News Department should guided, if necessary, by the Hong Kong Government's draft press release and comments
on the recommendations in the pamphlet and that, if asked, should say that HMG sees no need for a Commission of Inquiry.
D.F. Meille
D F MILTON
Hong Kong and Indian Ocean
Department
23 January 1976
Cc:
PS/PUS
Mr Bentley, FED
Mr McNally
Mr Attewell, News Dept
OLA
lague.
For what it is watt, to-day's Times
reports
now-cocage now cocage by the
Honę
Kang Chencre Кая
Слышалий
Communcit press,
with at the record
bricking by Camarcent
Chericre
that'
demands for increased self. govenmar
"Trotskyite nonsense"
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