CONFIDENTIAL
Pla
BY BAG
SCR 15/2041/70 Pt II
SIM 251/37/01
MRS BM KELLY
MOD
༣
HICLE
al
4 July 1977
13.
HKK OG 3
UNGERS' RESEARCH PROJECT
2.
Thank you for your letter of 9 June.
we are grateful to you for the time which you
have clearly had to spend on this case.
3.
I must a mit I was not altogether surprised that your decision to refuse the grant had been challenged, but I doubt if there is very much that I can add to what I said before. What the Ungers now claim about the politics of their informants for this particular project may well be true, although I have not been able to check it out as my only source is away at present. As I think I explained previously, we do not object to the nature of the proposed research and would not wish to stop it, if it were to take place under any other aegis than that of the British Jovernment. But if the Ungers are supported with British Govern:ent funds, then I think one must face the fact that this is likely to be interpreted by the Chinese as an unfriendly act and therefore damage Anglo/ Chinese relations.
4.
I have been toying with the idea that as compromise you might be able to consider making non- participation in political activities here a condition for providing a grant. But on further reflection, î doubt if this would work. hrs Unger's views on what constitutes political activity are unlikely to coincide with those of the Hong Kong authorities and it would be repugnant for any respectable academic to be bound down by such restrictions or indeed for you to impose them. Meanwhile, ve have discovered another incident in 1974 when Frs unger fell foul of the law because of her political activities in fact, she was let off on a technicality on that occasion. But her rotskyite friends,
CONFIDENTIAL
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