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HONGKONG
We visited the Gurkha Battalions and the Scots Guards and found that facilities and accommodation were being improved.
Some of the British wives were not very happy in the rather strange environment of the Far East but the majority seemed well content. The three-fold increase in car tax and the increased cost of electricity were obviously affecting the lives of married servicemen as these costs were not yet reflected in their scale of allowances. As a result, many could not afford to turn on their air conditioning.
I personally was very concerned about the condition of the Vietnamese refugees who are now being moved to closed camps.
The number of persons in the hutted camp we visited in Kowloon, was the same as when these huts were used for British prisoners of war in what were then termed "barbaric conditions". These refugees, some of whom have been in Hongkong for over three years, are now being moved to closed camps on an island where they will not be allowed to work or leave the island. I attach Answers to Questions I have asked on this subject.
CHINA
After the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, China moved towards democracy but this has endangered the control of the Communist Party, and the brakes have now been put on. We visited an Army Division which had been in its quarters for many years and had its own farms and workshops. Only senior officers' wives were allowed to accompany their husbands, and they were required to work seven hours a day in the workshops.
We also visited a show Commune where the Management Committee was elected. It was suggested that if this could be done on Commune level, it might also be done on the level of a national leadership. Parliament meets only once a year and is a rubber stamp.
The two issues on which Chinese officials were most voluble were their fear and dislike of the USSR and their annoyance with America over their supply of arms to Taiwan. I got the impression that the latter was, to some extent, synthetic and that the most they would do and even this was unlikely - would be to ask for the withdrawal of the American Ambassador as they had for the Dutch when the Netherlands supplied two submarines for Taiwan.
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