TNAG-0032-FCO40-68-Relations-with-China-1968 — Page 35

CONFIDENTIAL

loaders we may expect a return to the comparatively quiet

co-existence which characterised Hong Kong's, and therefore

Britain's, relations with China in the late 1950s and early

1960s. This theory is reassuring but mistaken. It ignores

the fact that more than six months after the communists called

off their campaign of violence in Hong Kong, Sino-British

relations have not in fact improved to any significant degree.

I have no doubt that China's policy towards Hong Kong last

year was partly the result of extremist counsels prevailing

during the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. It is

certainly true that much of this turmoil appears to have

ended and that in recent months the Chinese have been at some

pains to restore their badly damaged reputation in inter-

national diplomacy. If, therefore, confrontation were a

purely temporary aberration, wo could expect by this time to be

able to point to specific improvements in Sino-British

relations which had come about with the passage of time.

This is not the case. Even such small concessions as the

Chinese have made (for example on the question of visas

for some junior members of the staff of this Mission, or the

visit to Reuter's arrested correspondent, Anthony Grey, or

the Hong Kong border agreement of November 1967) have come

only in return for concessions from our side.

CONFIDENTIAL

16.