TNAG-0032-FCO40-68-Relations-with-China-1968 — Page 33

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this Mission, operating from makeshift quarters in what was

my house, beside the shell of our former Chancery building,

cxist in a sort of diplomatic limbo. We are fed and housed

and no longer particularly harassed in our daily lives, but

we are (and have been for over a year) excluded from any

official Chinese function, and are denied exit visas or even

permission to move outside Peking. Thus we approach the end

In

of our first year of detention as political hostages.

Hong Kong violence has ceased and tension both in the colony

and along the frontier has receded, but the Communists

continue to show an attitude of open and militant hostility

towards the Hong Kong Government.

Origins of the Crisis

3. Before proceeding to explore possible ways and means

of attaining that "early improvement" in Sino-British

relations

which we have told the Chinese we desire, it would

be salutary to ask ourselves why and how they have reached

their present pass. This phase in our relations is

sometimes described as "confrontation", which is a not

inconvenient term, providing we realise that there will always

be, oven at the best of times, a persisting clash of interests

between Poking and Hong Kong, as the former strives to improve

its position within the colony at our expense. It is most

unlikely that in the foreseeable future our relations with

China will ever be characterised as "good". "Confrontation"

should, therefore, be understood in this paper to mean the

state of abnormal tension in our relations which has obtained

/since

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