TNAG-0023-FCO40-59-Facilities-for-US-Forces-1968 — Page 51

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aircraft carrier US "Enterprise", and the probability that the visit had caused a delay in the grant of exit visas to members of our Mission in Peking. At that time Sir D. Hopson had recommended that visits by heavy American ships should either

be discontinued altogether, or restricted to one a month. It was decided that such a restriction would be damaging to Anglo- American relations, detrimental to confidence in Hong Kong and would not in any case be a sufficient concession to secure a

significant improvement in Sino-British relations. In the

event, the Chinese informed us on 27 July that they intended to issue exit visas to those members of the Mission who wished to leave China and since then they have granted nine out of eighteen, including that of 3ir D. Hopson. It therefore appears that provided particularly provocative visits such as the

Enterprise"

are avoided and that the visits of other large ships are

adequately spaced it is unlikely that naval visits as a whole

will constitute a major irritant in relations with China. A

recent careful analysis by the Special Branch in Hong Kong of

Chinese reactions to naval visite indicates that the Chinese

tend to use them as a pretext for complaint about Hong Kong when they wish to exploit some particular foreign policy issue such as Vietnam but in other circumstances show a fairly hight level

of tolerance towards them.

6.

The proposal that CVS's and LPH's should be included among ships after the visit of which there should be a significant pause was made originally by the Governor (Hong Kong telegram No. 739) and endorsed in London at a time when there was a

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CONFIDENTIAL