[This telegram is of particular secrecy and should be retained by the authorised recipient and not passed on].
Cypher/OTP
DEPARTMENTAL DISTRIBUTION
FROM NANKING TO FOREIGN OFFICE
30
(28)
(27)
Sir R. Stevenson
No. 1098
D. 3.15 a.m. 25th July, 1949
R. 4.28 a.m. 25th July, 1949
25th July, 1949
Repeated to Hong Kong.
EMERGENCY SECRET LIGHT
Addressed to Foreign Office telegram No. 1098 of 25th July, repeated to Hong Kong.
Your 822 calling for my comments on Colonial Office telegram No. 959 to Hong Kong.
The Parliamentary question relating to Chinese Communist publicity in Hong Kong.
Though the Communists have since also demanded cessation of activities of U.S.I.S. in all places where they operate in occupied China including Nanking (where local authorities notified H.. Embassy that our information services would likewise be forbidden here) I still adhere to the opinion expressed in my telegram No. 1057 (not repeated to Hong Kong),
2. From the view-point of British interests in China I feel that it is important that Reuter's and the North China Daily News should continue to provide a channel for news and comment from outside as long as possible even though under existing restrictions they may have to be somewhat guarded. I fear the closure of the New China agency etc. might result in the elimination of the above British press organisations without in fact successfully preventing the circulation of Communist propaganda in Hong Kong, particularly in the absence of strict postal censorship in the colony. I would therefore profer that the closure of such Chinese Communist agencies be reserved as direct retaliation in the event of Communists suppressing Reuters or the North China Daily News.
3.
It seems to me that the Parliamentary question offers good opportunity to stress that we do not propose to abandon thus lightly our fundamental principles of freedom of the press, but that we are naturally closely watching these restrictive tendencies of the Communist administration in China, which seems to be following the regular pattern of Soviet tradition. /We will