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EXTRACT FROM "SUMMARY OF WORLD BROADCASTS"

Part V. The Far East.

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Position of Overseas Chinese.

PERSECUTION 11 HONGKONG. On 10th September the NONA (22.52) circulated a report on the situation in Hongkong written by a special correspondent. He said that the persecution of the Chinese inhabitants was becoming more open and that the people considered that the Colony had become a police State. In October 1948 the Hongkong authorities had begun to issue a series of reactionary ordinances aimed at depriving the Chinese residents of their rights; workers had been forbidden to strike, restrictions had been imposed on people's organisations and wartime emergency powers had been extended in another form. Recently the garrison had been increased and fortifications had been erected in the New (Kowloon) Territory. This had created a warlike atmosphere and had provided the authorities with pretexts for passing additional "wartime" regulations granting more power to the police and to the military authorities; for instance any Chinese civilian could now be searched and arrested - and even deported without any legal safeguards. In this way the authorities had suddenly ordered the "progressive" writer Chou Kang-ming to leave Hongkong without giving any reasons beyond stating that his further presence was regarded as a danger to public security.

Although a few "progressive" papers and periodicals were still being published by the Chinese in Hongkong, Government pressure against them was getting stronger every day. Whereas the British-owned Press of the colony was allowed to "slander" the New China at will, Chinese-owned papers were being threatened with suspension if they dared to publish only a short news item "revealing the real situation in Hong Kong and Britain". Such threats had, for instance, been made when several "democratic" Chinese papers in Hongkong had published an NCHA release on the Four Ministers' Conference; more recently the local branch of the NCNA had received an official warning after the publication of a news item about the Amethyst. In short, said the writer, freedom of the Press in Hongkong was reserved for those papers ready to bend to the will of imperialism.

As for Chinese schools in Hongkong, especially those for workers' children, pressure was being brought to bear to make them dispense "colonial education": workers' education centres had been closed down although all sections of the Chinese community had in the past provided for their maintenance. The writer warned that all these reactionary measures must have the effect of stiffening the "patriotic" feelings of the Chinese people in Hongkong". He had himself seen how the local population had been pleased with the news that four British naval vessels had been damaged by PLA gunfire while "trying to obstruct the Yangtse river crossing operations".

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