Classification CONFIDENTIAL
OUT TELEGRAM (CONT)
Caveat
DEDIP
Precedence · IMMEDIATE
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1990 and over the new airport. He concludes with-a-passage on the Governor's proposals. As you would expect, he takes the line that there has been a radical change in British policy, gives a lengthy justification of his own approach, and is highly critical of the present approach.
5.
The Department's advice, having studied the manuscript and discussed the position with the Legal Advisers, is that there is nothing in it which contravenes the requirements of national security. They conclude however that Sir P Cradock's account of his activities on issues which remain under discussion with the Chinese (the question of political development and the airport) could be injurious to our relations with the Chinese Government, particularly given the strong criticism in the closing section of the book of the Government's current policy. They also believe that a general case could be made that publication of these sections would be destructive of confidential relationships given that a number of officials still dealing with the Hong Kong problem are identified in the manuscript as previously associated with Sir P Cradock's views. But they recommend that we should concentrate, in the advice we offer the Cabinet Secretary, on the potential damage to relations with China.
6. Subject to your views, we propose that Sir J Coles should take the Governor through this background and explain that we propose to proceed as follows, subject to his views:
The damaging
- We do not see any scope for legal remedies. passages are not so much revelation of specific information, as critical comment on the Government's current policy.
Any attempt to suppress this in the courts would almost certainly rebound against us.
We propose to advise the Cabinet Secretary that he should ask
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Fented in the UK for HMSO 1:91 Da FC03276 M100 CCN 56294
STOCK No. C037C YFB7
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Classification CONFIDENTIAL