RESTRICTED
3
The paper reproduced the interview between Mr. Wang and the delegation in the council's publication “China Today”.
The next day the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST picked up the story and noted, "Mr. Wang was the latest of a number of Chinese leaders who clarified and reiterated China's policy as regards the future of Hongkong.”
It also said that an article in the Cheng Ming, a new leftwing magazine, had given the following clarifications on Hong Kong's status quo. Hong Kong would not be taken back before the Taiwan question was settled; peaceful negotiations and British rule will be concluded only through political means and that British rule in Hong Kong will continue to be stable for a relatively lengthy period provided the Hongkong authorities prevent Soviet infiltration and limit nationalist activities here.
The Ta Kung Pao (December 1) also published Mr. Wang's interview.
The STAR (November 28) in its editorial said "The 4,500-word analysis in the pro-Peking monthly Cheng Ming (Contending Schools) on China's policy toward Hongkong and Macau is seen by China watchers as an attempt to reassure local investors and businessmen."
It said the British agreement with "the Manchu Court is irrelevant to the Communists. "The question is the usefulness of the two cities in maintaining and building up China's own domestic economy."
It went on to say that Hong Kong's economic value to China is "part of the maintenance of the international balance of power between the west and the dogma-divided two big Communist giants that face one another on China's northern border".
The FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW (December 2) carried Raymond Yao's comments on the Cheng Ming article.
He said political observers see the article as an unofficial public relations exercise by China to ease the growing anxiety in the minds of local commercial and industrial communities (and foreign investors) over the future of Hongkong, as the expiry date of the lease on the New Territories draws nearer".
He said the article listed the "prerequisites for the continuation of Hongkong's present status" . . . and one major point was "a warning against any move to make Hongkong independent".
RESTRICTED
}