PART
C
File No
/B13
3/22
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SECRET
COMMONWEALTH OFFICE
DEPT..
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st
4916
INFORMATION AND!.
TITLE: HONG KONG!.
PROPAGANDA ASPECTS:
DISTURBANCES 1967:
REFER TO
DEPT.
DATE DEPT.
NAME
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No. Hall од
11/5
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FILE
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REFER TO
DATE DEPT.
NAME
DATE
2318
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318
701/07702
C
7
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SECRET
PART
C
"O..
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14/2
8th February 1968
4/5
(Dear Lad Hill
May I call your attention to a BBC-2 Television programme about Hong
Kong which was broadcast on 9th January at 9.55 p.m., and for which I
gave an interview here to Mr. Pettifer.
I
Before this interview, Mr. Pettifer sub- mitted his proposed questions
to me, at my request. found a number of these to be unsatisfactory,
being either excessively hypothetical or so framed as to require me to
deal with the question-begging imputations which were contained in them,
before coming to the question itself. In short, the questions were not
really designed to elicit information, but to entrap me into a situation
in which the interview lent credence to Mr. Pettifer's imputations.
While this may be in the BBC's current interviewing style, it is
nevertheless as silly as it is unmannerly; and I was naturally not
prepared to fall for any such tricks.
I
I then discussed with Mr. Pettifer a number of alternative questions
which would have had the effect of enabling me to express what I really
thought. am grateful to Mr. Pettifer that he did eventually although
with some reluctance consent to questions which were more or less
acceptable to me. With one exception which I will refer to later, these
were the questions which were in fact asked during a longish interview,
and which I answered to the best of my ability. I was able in the
answers to cover the situation here with reasonable accuracy and in some
detail. One way and another, the whole business
took up two or three hours of my time.
Lord Hill of Luton,
Chairman, BBC,
Broadcasting House, London, W.1.
#
וי
!
Sir Arthur Galsworthy
cc:
Hon. C.S.
DIS
L
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Presumably your with In such prorrænum.5
is to inform your audiences through persons gasified to know something
of the subject antiter. Would you, hometer, please look at the final
result, as it appears from the transcript? About 60% of the programme
was riven over to the comments of Mr. Pattifer and Mr. Michelmore's
introduction. While Mr. Pettifor, of course, knows practically notning
about Bor Konr, this part of the programme does contain a certain amount
of fairly lementary factual material, accurate enough within the limits
of
but at the accuracy commor to progrUNKCE of this type: same time,
whenever a view la expressed it is almost invariably tendentiour. I
could pick most of these remarks to pieces, but it is not really my
purpose to comment In detail in this letter. It would take too long.
Of the remaining 40% of the programme,
-
about 30% is given over be the views of Mr. Davies, who has been here
about 1-3 years only. He is well-known an an open critic of the Colony
Government, although his views command no real following here and in
particular they emphatically do not represent any considerable body of
responsible Chinese opinion. I do not of course object to a critic being
riven a place on the programme. It is the relative prominence given to
his opinious, without a chance of rebuttal, which is objectionable.
Finally. I en allowed the romeining one- tenth part
of a programmo to which four people have contributed. of all that was
recorded I am permitted to make two remarks only. The first was not
preroded by the question I was supposed to be answering, and is
therefore out of conterb. Moreover, it deals with one of the least
important rolete vovered in the actusi interview, in the sense that Lus
content is already well and widely known. The remora remark which
survived editing, on the other rang, la preceded by Mr. Pettifer's
question; and this question is one which Mr. Pebilfry interpolated
without prior egr ement. You will notice that it is hypothetical,
clented, and calls for a
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comparison that cannot commute to made. I hone that these were not, as
appears, the attributes which in fact gained 15 a place in the
programme. You will notice also, on the other bord that Mr. Pettifer's
questions to Mr. Pavics viri.ally invited replies hostile to this Gove
"nmen
про
After en 24 pt to make me lend my presence to
supporting nojarsi?lable imputations, then, two short extracts :f' '.
one intervlow were actually broadcast as purporting to convey the views
of the
1.0 Governor on the current situation in Hong Kong. pretend that these
extracts fairly represented those views as they were actually expressed,
or to pretend that your audience has been given valid first-hand
information on the subject matter of the programme, is to affront the
intelligence. The fart le that programmes of this type, containing
interviews auch ae this, are mere fabrications of the BBC's
masqueradinat under the muise of truth. They are falsifiel material,
issued by means of a species of confidence trick in violation of the
name and personality of the unfortunate pereor subjected to this kind of
treatment.
If the PRC werts its audiences to know what people on the spot think
about any given situation, why cannot they select thorn who are most
familiar with it and let them have "hel say in answer to straightforward
questions? The result will sometimes need to be shortened, no doubt, but
way dammot the essence of what is said he held in respuet? Inis, in my
experience, is the more usual practice wite similar television
programmes in other English speaking countries; and the results appear
to me to command just as much attention as do BBC programmes Furthermor,
reing obviously more honest, they are that much the more credible.
I regret welting to you in these terms but I do feel
some obligation to try to protect this complex, courageous and
self-reliant community from the gratuitous misrepresentation it has too
often suffered
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+
7
at the BBC's hands recently. The situation is delicate
including many
enough here, and much is at stake:
Surely Hong people's security and Imired their lives. Kong merits some
effort et being reported objectively and fairly? Furthermore, I would
have thought it obvious that the BBC representatives are unlikely to
continue to receive ruen co-operation when those who try to assist them
are subjected to what I can only describe as professionally dubious
practices at the nands of their abf.
I have conied this letter to Sir Arthur
Galsworthy in the Commonwealth Office.
:
MANA
Haunch.
1
(Sir David Trench)
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!
yś
Reference.............
LAST
REF.
Sir John Johnston
We had a brief word on the telephone this afternoon about the attached
copy of a letter which Sir David Trench has sent to Lord Hill,
complaining in particular about a BBC 2 television programme about Hong
Kong on January 9th, and more generally about the attitude of the BBC
towards Hong Kong. 2. The first point I would like to make is that Sir
David Trench is essentially a liberal man and a liberal Governor, and
not a man to resent or be afraid of criticism. That he should have felt
he
must express himself as frankly as he has done in this letter is an
indication of the strength of his feeling about the BBC's attitude
towards Hong Kong. Over the past two years in particular, while I have
been visiting Hong Kong or Sir David has been in the United Kingdom, he
has frequently let off steam about the BBC in its portrayal of Hong
Kong; and I think that the television programme on January 9th must have
been pretty well the final straw.
3. I myself did not see this programme, but Mr. Hall did. He tells me
that when he saw it he felt considerable indignation about it. In his
view it gave an entirely wrong impression of Hong Kong, put the Hong
Kong Government and HMG in the worst possible light, and in his view,
had it been seen by the Communists, would unquestionably have given them
much comfort and satisfaction.
4. Prior and subsequent to Lord Shepherd's visit to Hong Kong we have
had occasion to tell the BBC that we thought they were doing the United
Kingdom a disservice in their sensational and inaccurate reporting of
events in Hong Kong. In particular we criticised them for some pretty
inflated (and inaccurate) accounts of what was happening on the border
area; and there was one notable occasion when an incident in Kowloon in
a relatively minor key which took the Police precisely 15 minutes to
deal with was headlined by the BBC as "Hong Kong has another night of
violence". This particular report caused a good deal of indignation in
Hong Kong at the time, and I know for a fact that it led to a number of
private letters from residents in the Colony to their families over here
telling them to disregard BBC reports about Hong Kong.
I
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5. I hope that we can back up the representations
which Sir David Trench has made to the BBC.
Perhaps
we can have another word about this when you have
read this letter?
ANS
(A.N. Galsworthy)
14th February, 1968
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20/2
Reference..........
76
Sir A. Galsworthy
Hong Kong and the B.B.C.
Your minute of 14 February below. I am in
no doubt that the Governor has every right to the
anger reflected in his letter to Lord Hill. But
in terms of impact on the B.B.C., who are adept
at every kind of self-defence in these situations,
it has two disadvantages
+
(1) at no_point does it prove the bias of the
DIT
ETF.
NA
25
2.
T
B.B.C. programme. It makes its case by
unsupported assertion.
(11) The B.B.C. will not accept that either
the Governor or ourselves are objective
judges of programmes critical of Hong Kong
and of H.M.G.
Nevertheless, I think there is sufficient in
the letter to establish that the programme was
produced in a pretty discreditable manner and to
make a prima facie case for bias, if not for
malevolence, despite the absence of chapter and
verse.
3. The question now is what action we can take
with the B.B.C. which will most effectively re-
inforce the Governor's case, without giving grounds
to those elements in the B.B.C. who will seek to
dismiss it as an example of the Establishment's
intolerance of criticism.
4. I think this might best be done by a follow-
up letter to Lord Hill either from Lord Shepherd
or the Secretary of State, if it is possible for
us to write the right sort of letter i.e. one
containing dispassionate chapter and verse, and
/not
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і
not relying too much on generalised assertions.
The example quoted in paragraph 4 of your minute
about the incident in Kowloon would be ideal for
inclusion. Do you think it is possible for the
Department to produce a draft which would refer
to the Governor's letter and express a general
Ministerial disquiet about the attitude of the
B.B.C. to Hong Kong illustrated by a series of
specific examples including if possible team
endorsement of the Governor's strictures on the
programme of 9 January specifying and establishing
the bias or falsity of the programme?
JB Instan
(J. B. Johnston)
19 February 1968.
Mr. Carter
I think this is a
I think we have quite
material
on record
kindly prepare a
?
very helpful suppestini.
a lit
А вмерция
Carld you very
draft, & which Mr. Hall
may also wish to cartii lite.
ANS.
20/2
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Mr. Gaminara
77
This is an
awkward one
Lue
need
a transcript of
The
T. V.
programme
い
which must also have been put ant-
on
B.B.C.
/
sunie
$
Saw
the last part of
+
it le.
The interview with the Dances the
дан
d
LA
to get one?
2.
Governor), Contel News Dept-help
What other R.R.C. suns
Cam
We
document ?
S
have
no knowledge
The metance
that Sur A. Galsworthen
describes in para 4
of his mmute.
BEF
ņ
81
2072
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WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE
HONG KONG GOVERNMENT OFFICE
Konverterall
ам
78.
54 PALL MALL
LONDON S.W.
01-930 7951
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501/2
CONFIDENTIAL
N.J.V. Watt, Esq., 0.B.E.,
Director of Information Services, Beaconsfield louse,
HƯNG KONG,
22nd February 1968
Further to my letter of February 19th, the meeting between members of
the Committee of the liong Kong Association and B.B.C. officials duly
took place yesterday. It was a luncheon meeting, and I gather the
atmosphere was extremely cordial. The Hong Kong Association representa-
tives expressed concern about a certain lack of perspective in recent
B.B.C. sound and television reports on Hong Kong affairs, and I
understand they received a very sympathetic hearing. H.E.'s letter to
Lord Hill was not mentioned, but the l'ettifer report in the BFC-TV
"Twenty-four Hours" programme, which gave rise to it, was referred to.
The Hong Kong Association representatives were Mr. Jeffry Hamm,
chairman, Mr. John Keswick (who is, incidentally, a member of the
B.B.C.'s General Advisory Council), ír. Bryan Barlow, and Ir. H. J.
Collar, secretary. The B.b.C. officials were Mr. C.J. Curran, Director,
External broadcasting, and Ir. J.C. Crawley, Foreign Editor, News and
Current Affairs.
Mr. Collar will be reporting more fully to Susan Yuen, and he will ask
her to keep you informed.
(Ronald Boxall)
Copy: A.W. Gaminara, Esq., C.M.G.,
Commonwealth Office.
RB/SC
Mt.
80
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遍
WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE
HONG KONG GOVERNMENT OFFICE
Ramon.
54 PALL MALL
LONDON S.W.
01-930 7951
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Report
from
Parker, Bishop Limited
Broadway Court, Brighton Road, Lancing, Sussex.
Telephone: Lancing 2844/5
Tolex 87171
79
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Report No.... HK.113.
Length 10. 40"
Transmitted on
29
BBC Television- "Twenty-Four Hours"
Date 9th January, 1968. Time 9.55p.m.
Short Title Situation in Hong Kong.
Cliff Michelmore:
Last year, the British Crown Colony of Hong
Kong was suddenly caught up in the revolution. going on in communist
China, riots, bomb explosions, demonstrations and strikes swept Hong
Kong and Julian Pettifer reported then for "Twenty-Four Hours". Now,
on his way back to Vietnam, he's been through Hong Kong
again.
Julian Pettifer:
This time last year, I was reporting
on the activities of the Red Guards who brought such turmoil to the
neighbouring Portuguese Colony of Macao. And I can remember standing
right here and speculating on whether the shock-waves of China's
cultural revolution would be felt in Hong Kong during 1967. Well, of
course, they were and, for proof, you only have to look at the New
Year's Honours List, which contains the names of no less than 22 Hong
Kong policemen, including the Commissioner, and a bomb disposal expert,
who were all honoured for the part they played in helping to restore
order to the gravely- troubled Colony.
SHA
TAU KOK
Ou
I was remembering, too, the bands of Red Guards closing in on
Government House, chanting quotations from the
Ι
"Thoughts of Chairman Mao" and most unnerving of all, recalled the
incident at Château Coque on the border when men and Chinese attacked a
British police post, killing five men and bringing a dangerously tense
situation to the frontier area. In those summer days, Hong Kong trembled
and many of the rich and middle-class Chinese
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Report No......HK...113..
Continuation No.........1.
11
booked their airline tickets for Taiwan, while money poured out of the
Colony in the same direction.
But now, outwardly at least, Hong Kong is peaceful and not only
peaceful, but prosperous. Business in the stores expect for those run by
the communists, has set new records. Just to see the way people are
dressed and the goods they're buying is to realise that despite its
troubles, the Colony's economic miracle has continued almost unchecked.
Of course, there is still poverty, plenty of it, and gross inequalities.
But wages have risen by 80% in the past seven years and it shows.
Perhaps that was the fkrst of many communist mistakes. They rocked the
boat just at the moment when the mass of the people here had begun to
taste the rewards of a decade of struggle. And so, not out of any
loyalty, but out of solid self-interest, which is a much more reliable
emotion, the population backed the Government. Almost everyone for a
change had a good word to say for the police and British officials
congratulate themselves on weathering the storm.
Since the strikes fizzled out, public transport has returned to
normal, with only the wire grilles around the drivers' cabs on the trams
as a reminder that a few weeks
hundreds of bombs were being scattered through the Colony every day.
Although bomb disposal crews still stand by twenty-four hours a day,
calls on their services are diminishing and, in most cases, the bizarre
collection of tin cans, bags and bottles, either fail to explode or are
found to contain nothing more dangerous than sand and scraps
of old iron.
|| ago, hundreds of
But as the violence diminishes, there is some evidence that the Hong
Kong communist hierarchy is beginning to learn from its past mistakes.
Today, the bright red banners bear a different message. Bombs failed to
win them friends but
Nonsense
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Report No..... HK..113....
Continuation No...........2.............
devaluation could have given them a most popular grievance. In this 50'
lampoon, Britain, the Imperialist assassin, is shown slinking off with
the loot, and the caption tells the Chinese that the thieving character
of the British will never change. By devaluation they've stolen two
hundred and ten million dollars, from the people of Hong Kong, it says.
Fortunately, after initial devaluation, the Colony was able to revalue
its dollar to within 5% of its old worth and a drastic rise in prices
has been prevented. But it's towards sensitive areas like this, to the
sweat shops of this city, where neither wages nor working con- ditions
are what they should be, that the communists may turn their attention.
Remember that it was in an artificial
flower factory like this one that the trouble started last May. It
began when Union leaders launched a calculated campaign of violence in
reprisal for a management lock-out and the same sort of thing could
easily happen again.
The Government says that it's aware that in the over- crowded,
ill-ventilated workshops, labour management relations are in a bad way.
But it's under attack for doing little or nothing to improve the
situation. As the communists may have discovered, Hong Kong is a place
more concerned with economic realities, with money, than with social and
political theory. I discussed its problems with the Editor of the "Far
Eastern Economic Review" Mr.
Derek Davies.
Mr. Davies, there seems to be a certain amount of self- congratulation
in official circles that the Colony's weathered the storm in the past
year. this euphoria's justified?
Do you feel that
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Report No.... HK.113.....
Continuation No.3,
Mr. Davies: Well in many senses, yes. They've got
·
everything to pat themselves on the back about. After all we've had a
very a very tough year indeed and we've come through with all flags
flying. Look at the harbour, look at everything around you. Building's
starting again. The money that left the banking system is starting to
come back. Exports during '67 went up by 12% and we export about 90% of
what we make. I think there's every reason to be self- satisfied, but
self-satisfaction and complacency is, in fact, our greatest danger today
rather than the communists. We should be very grateful to the communists
for making such an utter 'cock-up' of their campaign. They made every
possible mistake they could, including disobeying Chairman Mao's
instructions to go amongst the population like fishes in water and win
mass support.
Instead they shut themselves away in their barricaded Union headquarters
and threw bombs and tried to harm the economy and put everyone against
them. It's almost impossible that a communist movement should have
managed to get 90, or 95% of a Colonialist population behind the
Imperialist Government, but that's in fact, what the communists have
done. Sir David Trench, Governor of Hong Kong: Certainly, there The
violence does appear to have been a change in tactics.
in the last ten days or so seems largely to have gone out of the
situation. I'm judging now by their own press when I say that,
apparently, their tactics now is to consolidate their supporters to
persuade them to study the works of Chairman Mao and generally to
reaffirm themselves in their faith. This in itself is an unexceptionable
method of procedure and may I stress that it's no crime to be a
communist in Hong Kong, it's only a crime to disobey the
law.
What their tactics from there on will be, nobody really knows. After
all, the only way we have of judging
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Report No......HK.113....
Continuation No. 4.
is by reading their newspapers and that is what they are concentrating
on now, united front work.
J. Pettifer: If they should switch their tactics for example, to
stirring up trouble on the labour front, do you think they'd be a
greater threat to the Colony in that respect than they are when they
take to the streets.
Sir David: Well it depends entirely on what they do, doesn't it, whether
they're a greater threat or not. I have to know precisely what you're
suggesting they might do, before I could say it'd be a worse threat.
There are certain things they could do which might be anembarrasment
but, in general, of course, ordinary industrial action within the law is
not something we would object to at all. J. Pettifer: To visit the
smaller work places in Hong Kong you'd imagine that the Colony had no
labour legislation of any kind.
This is not the case, the laws are on the books,
but, largely because of corruption in the labour department and police
force and because of the fantastic Chinese will to work under any
condition, the law is rarely enforced.
There's a regulation that forbids the employment of children
under 14 but where the child wants to work and where the employer pays
off the factory inspector, the law means nothing. What's more, only
factories registered with the Labour Department are ever inspected by
anyone and there are thousands of small concerns that are unregistered
and left to their own Dickensian devices.
Now, Government talks an awful lot about labour
relations.
They seem to be aware that something needs to be
done. So far the only practical step that I've heard about has been the
Government has talked about calling in two experts. Now does this seem
to you to be enough?
Davies: Far from it and I don't know what two foreign experts
would be able to do in this can of worms here.
Mr.
We've
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Report No... HK.113...
Continuation No...5..........
got no Unions, we've got no tradition of collective bargain- ing, well
we have got Unions but they're terrifically split between the ultra Left
Wing and the ultra Right Wing. If the employers try and do something
about it, to create a middle of the road movement, which they could
bargain with, it would be condemned as a 'yellow' Union. No, I don't
feel legislation is the answer. I feel the answer is higher wages. J.
Pettifer: Why is Government weak on its labour front here? Mr. Davies:
Well it's embraced this 19th Century laissez faire attitude, leave us
alone, don't interfere, it's worked well so far, why shouldn't it go on
working, and it's very difficult to get through the head of a 55-year
old bureau- crat that the circumstances have changed. That's the
trouble. They don't want to intervene, there's no tradition for
intervening and you can't persuade them that this is the 20th Century.
J. Pettifer: This being the case, what is your prediction for the
coming year. Are you gloomy about it because of
this attitude?
•
After all, we've which dominates us,
and
Mr. Davies: No, I'm very far from gloomy. come through '67 in which
China economic co-operation with China is absolutely essential
to the future of Hong Kong, its whole raison d'etre during that year,