CO537-5142 — Page 158

103.

EXPANSION OF HONG KONG BROADCAST ING

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Memorandum.

RM

The question of installing a high-power

medium wave broadcasting station in Hong Long

has been discussed between Mr. Dening and

Mr. Paskin and officials of the Foreign and

Colonial offices. The following are their

agreed views:-

1.

It can be taken as certain that all means

of communicating objective information on

international affairs to the Chinese people' will

be progressively eliminated by the Chinese

Communist Administration. This process has

atfected

already included Chinese newspapers in the

area administered by the Communists and some

European newspapers: it will be extended to

4

include virtually all the information activities

open

2.

hitherto possible to H.M. Missions in China and

to all information agencies, official or un-

official, which have hitherto served the country.

The Communists have stated openly their

intentions of "not needing" the Western Powers;

they have declared open hostility to "imperial-

ism" and there is no reason to suppose that

their attitude to British trading communities

will differ substantially from that which has

developed in Eastern Europe and which has

resulted in the progressive exclusion of direct

British trading interests and the expropriation

of the British capital enterprises. The proceßB

will be more or less lengthy, but is intended

to follow,mutatis mutandis, the same course as

that determined by Moscow in Eastern Europe.

3. The erection of a high-power medium'wave

transmitter in Hong Kong might be taken as

/ "provocative"

1