TNAG-0012-FCO40-48-Kowloon-disturbances-1967 — Page 101

the time?

QUESTION: What do the tropps actually do to pasa

SIR DAVID TRENCH: They train most of the time.

Quite extensive training areas. We have quite good training

areas for them in Hong Kong. Better training areas than

Malaya, certainly than Singapore.

QUESTION: May I return to the question of

China. Four provinces controlled by Mau, four doubtful and

others out of his control. What is the assessment of the China-

watchers, how long will this go on?

SIR DAVID TRENCH: I do not think they have made

assessments.

I have never heard of an assessment of how long

it will go on. I think it is impossible to assess that.

I daresay Mau would like to know that too.

QUESTION: Having started this, can they go on or

can they stop without losing face?

SIR DAVID TRENCH: It can peter out, yes, rather like

the dispute in Kowloon City, not resolved one way or the other.

Unlike ourselves, Westerners are such impatient people, they

like tidy terminations of things. This is not the way the East

operates.

1

QUESTION: One would hope to see it peter out, it

would be the ideal way?

SIR DAVID TRENCH: Yes.

.1

QUESTION: Could you tell us about the 'Press situation?

There is subversion or infiltration, is there not, in the Hong

Kong Press?

}

SIR DAVID TRENCH: Yes. The left wing is openly

seditious. It is no good taking action against it. It is

an awful thing. One has to know what is productive rather than

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