CO537-5142 — Page 214

SECRET

BROADCASTING TO CHINA FROM HONG KONG

(COLONIAL OFFICE MEMORANDUM)

There are a

It is evident from recent questions in the House and from speeches in the debate on China on 5th May that the possible use of Hong Kong for broad- casting to China is likely to be the subject of continuing public comment and discussion. number of complications involved in any such project, some of which cannot well be appreciated without some knowledge of the consideration already given to it during the past three years.

2.

The Government of Hong Kong has for some years favoured the idea of broadcasting a short-wave service in appropriate languages to cover China south of the Yangtse. The first object of such a service would be the projection of Hong Kong as an entrepot centre. Its second object would be the general projection of British information and ideas to China, for which the Colonial Government has never conceded that a station in Singapore can be politically and culturally equally well qualified. A short-wave service has bcon favoured mainly because to reach an equal area by medium- wave transmission would involve a much greater power and therefore a much higher cost.

3.

During the years 1946-8 this suggestion was considered by the Colonial Office in some detail. Consultation with the Foreign Office revealed, however, that the latter was firmly opposed on political grounds to the use of short-waves for a broadcasting service from Hong Kong to China; nor did it feel able to support any application to Treasury for the use of Imperial funds, without which the much greater cost of a medium-wave service could not be contemplated by the Colonial Government. No action was therefore taken. Meanwhile the Hong Kong Government has transmitted occasionally during this period on a short wavelength, registered internationally in its name, in order to reinforce its claim to use the wavelength later. It also submitted a claim for a substantial allocation of broadcasting time on short wavelengths to the international broadcasting conference recently concluded in Mexico City. The whole of this claim was abandonod before the end of the Conference as part of widespread reductions in Colonial claims and after the Foreign Office had re-affirmed its view that, even if a medium- wave service from Hong Kong to China were eventually to prove impracticable, it would still not favour a short- wave purvice.

The present "oposal for medium-wave broad- casting from Hong Kong to China began as one of several suggestions submitted by the Foreign Office to the Commissioner-General's conference with the Heads of

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