香港下匯景道
本署檔號 OUR REF.:
來附檔號 YOUr Ref.:
HkKatoli
RJ Stratton Esq CMG
British High Commissioner
WELLINGTON
THE FUTURE OF HONG KONG
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1/12
OVERNM
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
20 November, 1980.
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27.
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ARIAT
Thank you for sending me a copy of the article from the Wellington "Evening Post" of 30 October about the apparently gloomy state of affairs in Hong Kong and even gloomier prospects. It is hard to recognise the local scene in the picture of five million worried people trying to smile through their teeth!
2.
All this arises from the fevered imagination of one Walter Easey who runs, single-handed I believe, an organisation
I do not know in London called the Hong Kong Research Project.
if he was in the past a thorn in your flesh as he is now occasionally in mine. Easey recently published a booklet arguing the thesis that the UK and China have done a secret deal
In a television to hand over Hong Kong in the very near future. interview shortly after this appeared, the Governor dismissed this theory as "poppycock". The ubiquitous Government spokesman
also,
of course, said it was nonsense. In addition, and interestingly, a Chinese official in Peking, interviewed recently by a Hong Kong newspaper, has also just said that there would be
He was no secret deal about the future of Hong Kong. specifically refuting rumours (e.g. emanating from the Easey story that such a deal had been concluded.
3.
Thank you for the suggestion that you might try to put the record straight. I think, however, it is probably better to let such a tendentious story die a natural death. Protesting too much would probably draw greater attention to the story than it deserves.
CC
RD Clift Esq
(D C Wilson)
Bemo Koum * General Dent. FCO