MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE
than on reinforcing our diplomatic efforts on the ground. If resources of this magnitude really are available (which I doubt) we should have a voice in determining how they should be apportioned between the BBC and the Diplomatic Wing vote.
5. Where China's periphery is concerned, we believe that in Taiwan the World Service is pirated and reproduced on a local radio station. Local radio there is sophisticated (but also propagandist). Taiwan's overseas links are overwhelmingly with the United States. This does not suggest a very fruitful market for the BBC: but with increasing numbers of Taiwanese studying in the UK the potential audience for a UK presentation of world events is likely to grow.
6.
As between Mandarin and Cantonese the present and proposed balance seems about right. But given the continuing importance to us of the whole Southern China/Hong Kong region even beyond 1997, there probably is a case for the BBC building up a small Cantonese service. The comment on page B-17 of the BBC document that the BBC cannot count on use of its Hong Kong relay after 1996/97 has to be right. I believe there is no question of the Chinese permitting this. Earlier today, as it happens, the BBC passed us a report of an article in a Canton newspaper, accusing the BBC of waging a "cold war" against China through its expansion of its Mandarin services.
Japanese
7.
The document's references to Japanese (and to Korean) are sketchy and unconvincing. Transmissions in one or the other appear to be regarded as interchangeable options. No attempt is made to set out a clear and differentiated case relating to two quite distinct audiences.
Nor
8.
Neither we nor the Embassy in Tokyo are convinced by what the document has to say about the possibility of setting up a jointly-run radio station in cooperation with other European broadcasters. No attempt is made to identify or quantify the audience for such a service. is anything said about the content of the programming. Although the BBC hope to attract EC finance for the venture, Mr Basil Clarke (the head of the Far Eastern Service) has privately admitted to me that he would inevitably be looking for some matching funding from FCO funds. The BBC would have to make a far better case than the document does (or that Mr Clarke did to me) before we could contemplate FCO funding for such a service.
MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE