22612
Private Secretary
c.c.
HK&GD
INTERVIEW IN HONG KONG
Enter
AKK 02612
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY NO. 51 09 APR 1981
DESK OFFICER
INDEX
مثل
ΡΑ
& 04
REGISTRY
Action Taken
Ah 19
1.
The Asian Wall Street Journal has asked for
an on the record interview with the Secretary of State
with a view to printing a verbatim text on the editorial
page, as they did on his visit in 1979.
2.
The Asian Wall Street Journal has a small
but influential circulation in East Asia. Mr Robert Keatley,
who conducted the interview last time, is a reliable and sympathetic journalist.
3.
Nevertheless, I think that they have had
their turn. Lord Carrington would be open to the charge of
favouritism if he gave a second exclusive interview to them.
S3A
4.
When the Far East tour was to have taken
place last autumn, we had provisionally agreed to arrange
instead an on the record interview with the Far East Economic
Review, which is a well established English language current
affairs review based in Hong Kong and widely read throughout
Asia.
5.
Possible alternatives are the new Hong Kong edition of the "International Herald Tribune" and the Hong Kong papers, the "South China Morning Post and the 'Hong Kong Standard. An interview with a purely local paper would be
open to the objection that it would concentrate too much on
parochial issues and on the dominant, but difficult, question of the future of the Colony.
6./