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surprise I discover that the Hong Kong Government office do
not at present do this. I have encouraged Mr Yaxley to
start. It would not need to be done on a routine basis:
indeed that would tend to blunt its effectiveness. But when
Hong Kong stories are prominent in the press, it would be
useful for the British leader writers to see leaders and Op
Ed pieces from the South China Morning Post, the Standard and even the Chinese language press. Judging from
experience over the LegCo elections, these are almost always
more balanced than similar pieces in the UK and US press.
We could urge the Governor when he is here later in the
month to ensure that the Hong Kong Government office here follows up vigorously.
Governor's visits. Mr Cornish and I agree that a high media profile by the Governor would be unlikely to get the right results. He should concentrate on background
briefings for selected senior editors/leader
writers/political correspondents in an effort to get his
thinking across on the key issues. The Governor has coincidentally asked for our advice on his media engagements during his forthcoming visit. I submit a telegram incorporating these thoughts: we should get this off this week so that preparations can be made.
- Visit by ExCo members. The OMELCO office are responsible for media arrangements for visiting unofficial members of ExCo and LegCo. Our impression is that they do this largely on a responsive basis. There may well be scope to market members of ExCo in particular more energetically: they too could be encouraged to do more by way of briefings for selected members of the British press. They will not support HMG's policies in all cases. But they will at least
help to show the British media that Martin Lee is not the only experienced local public figure in Hong Kong.
overtaken
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