OUTWARD TELEGRAM
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This document must be paraphrased if the communication of its contents to any person outside Government Service is authorised.
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Typex
PRIORITY
TO HONG KONG (Sir A. Grantham)
Sent 21st March, 1950. 19.45 hra.
No. 400. Secret.
Tamsui telegram No. 3. to Peking repeated to you as my telegram No. 311.
Nationalist soldiers.
It had not been appreciated here that many of the soldiers shipped to Formosa were able-bodied. F.0. are advised that to send back able-bodied soldiers to insurgents, such as the Nationalists, might be regarded as intervention in a civil war and that the Central People's Government might well regard our actions as unfriendly. From your telegram No. 1295 of 3rd December 1949 it appears that the Chinese Communist authorities have themselves sent some of these Nationalist soldiers down to Hong Kong. Please report whether any able-bodied Nationalist soldiers remain in Hong Kong and if so whether these were sent down by the Communist authorities. In the meantime please do not send any more to Formosa.
Copies sent to:-
Foreign Office
Mr. J.S.H. Shattock.