1
added problem of people reacting to television film seen
Also if anything several days after the events portrayed. mattered sufficiently strongly to anyone they should try to find a more reliable source than the popular media or seek confirmation before taking action. However, I think people should be able to place considerable reliance on the BBC World Service. I remain convinced that they lapsed from their normal standards more often than they should have. The BBC was seen by students as being even more supportive
than VOA: it is only because the UK has no Fang Lizhi that the VOA has been singled out for attack.
4.
The UK resident business community here is rather mixed, with UK representatives in US, West German and other companies and US, Hong Kong and other citizens running the Shanghai offices of UK companies. Where Consulates are shading their advice differently, this undoubtedly contributes to a degree of confusion. There is no answer I can see beyond knowing ones own community as well as possible and having their confidence.
5.
A particular problem over departure arrangements came up with Chinese spouses of UK citizens, especially those who had only recently married.
In one case a
passport was stuck in Visa Section in Peking. (Many thanks to Andrew Staunton for excellent help on several of our recent problems: as to all our friends in Immigration Department in Hong Kong). A number of people were disappointed that even in an emergency we were unable to issue visas. Despite some initial helpfulness, we found that official letters written in lieu of visas for the UK or Hong Kong were not accepted by Chinese officials.
6.
A pleasant postscript to this section is that in an attempt to track down a Leeds student known to be travelling in Xinjiang we sent a telex to the Overseas Chinese Hotel in Urumqi. They helpfully replied fairly quickly telling us they had no UK guests. The Consular value of telex and fax links are obvious. It is equally obvious that we and you look incompetent both in Consular and Commercial terms when we try to pretend that telecommunications is one of the UK's priority sectors and yet do not have fax machines ourselves (ours has been held up because of discussions about whether a semi-secure fax could help with our communications problems).
POLITICAL
7.
We need to write up much more fully the campus activity here and the way the links worked with Peking. A good friend at Fudan University tells me that the Hong Kong student
was very much a hero
on the campus.
CONFIDENTIAL
/8. We
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