CONFIDENTIAL
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
Hus
11 March 1992
London SW1A 2AH
HKD 015/1
Mi Wara Fi +
12/3
1 2 MAR 1992
DESK OFFICE
in
Morris
pa.
12/3
123
Letter from Mr Stephen Ng
Thank you for your letter of 5 March about the request from Mr Stephen Ng that Mr Lau Shan-Ching should call on the Prime Minister.
Mr Lau is a Hong Kong resident who was released on 26 December last year after serving 10 years in China for political offences. He featured on the Prime Minister's list of detainees handed to the Chinese during the visit to Peking in September. Unlike Mr Lou Haixing, whom the Chinese released shortly after the Prime Minister's intervention, (and whom the Prime Minister met on 7 October), Mr Lau was obliged to serve out his full 10 year term, allegedly because he refused to admit his crime.
This is not, therefore, a case where the Prime Minister's intervention secured an early release. We do not believe that the Chinese would react strongly if the Prime Minister were to see Mr Lau (they did not do so when he received Mr Lou). But we see no particular need for the Prime Minister to see Mr Lau unless he wished to do so.
sever
Stephen Wall Esq 10 Downing Street
(Simon Gass)
Private Secretary