TNAG-0027-FCO40-63-Relations-with-China-1968 — Page 8

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has indicated that simultaneously with the protest of December 6th, the local Communists were given a rocket for letting school children become so blatantly involved in bombing activities and thus giving us a chance to justify closing all the Communist schools. A parallel indication is the fact that after the closure of Chung -ah, the "determined counter-attacks" promised by the Communist press never materialised, and there was instead the futile gesture of a one-day "strike" significantly unsccompanied by public demonstrations of any kind. Since then, things in the Kchools have returned very nearly to normal. 30 far as the prese is concerns, since the return of K1 Fung of the N.G.H.A. (see our Top Secret telegram No. 18 34) from Cânton on December 7th, reference to the use of violence has almost disappeared from the ages of

and a great deal more attention is being paid

(as before May) to the routine reporting of events in China.

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In other directions too there is to my mind clear evidence of an atten t to de-escalate, Communist organisations once again have begun complying with the law. For example, though for months Bany Pro-Communist trade unions have made no returns to the official Degistrar, last weak representatives of two of the most militant of them called on the Registrar to point out that their books had been seized by the police, and to ask in relatively polite terms for the books back so that they could get on with their returns. Finally, though isolated groups, notably in the New Territories, have still bɛen pursuing terrorist activities including the murder of a policeman last week - the mumber of bombs has very markedly decrossed.

5.

I do not think therefore that we need take too gloomy a view of the way in which things are going; nor that we need see ourselves as being in the nasty dilemma of having to choose between the abaixionment of law and order in HK, an the releaBE of the staff from /sking, It looks very much es if there is an element in .eking, now in a fairly influential position, which doss want a return to the kind of nodus vivendi that existed in Ding-fang Kong relations for most of the ten years after 1957. The danger, of course, in that if we make a false ste,, either by being too tough or too nocommolating in Hong Zong, the militants may gain round and we shall be back to square one.

b.

since drafting this, I have seen Commonwealth Office telegram fo. 2579 to us; and fin that i agree with its general argument. The only point on which. I personally feel some doubt

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