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MEETING WITH JUNE 4 CHINA SUPPORT GROUP: 2 AUGUST
Ars
5/8
1. I attended this meeting together with Rod Wye (RAD), David Walwyn (UND), Chris Sainty (HKD) and Jill Barrett
(Legal Advisers). The China Support Group team comprised Philip Baker (Barrister, China Support Group) Susan Whitfield (Chair of China Support Group), Wang Si-yuan (Federation for a Democratic China) and Lau Bing-sum (Chinese Political Prisoners Campaign). i Mr Baker started by making some general comments about the human rights situation in China. They considered that repression had not abated, citing continuing arrests and the execution campaign as proof of this. June 4 China. Support Group have compiled a list of 900 names of dissidents whose fate is still unclear. New names are still being received. There have been suggestions that quotas have been given for executions.
2.
Two new indications were of concern to the Group. There were signs that the repression was moving abroad, with the investigation of students overseas returning to China. At least one had been taken into immediate detention and others had been photographed at the airport. There were reports of orders to "neutralise" leading dissidents overseas, and at least one of Mr Baker's contacts went in fear of a "Bulgarian umbrella" type attack. members of the Embassy staff in London were regarded as particularly suspect in this connection.
3.
Two
The Support Group had two general requests of the British Government:
i) that we should retain the existing sanctions on
China; and
ii) that the Hong Kong Government and British
officials should not lobby the American
Administration in support of the retention of MFN status for China.
I responded that sanctions were co-ordinated within the EC but there was no suggestion at present that the ban on high level military contacts and on arms sales should be lifted. I pointed out that the removal of MFN status for China would have a disastrous effect on Hong Kong's economy and that the Hong Kong administration and British officials had a responsibility to make the American Government aware of this. (Mr Baker later clarified this point by saying that the Support Group were in favour of the conditional
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