787
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Office of the British Chargé d'Affaires,
PEKING.
13 August, 1968.
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Mr Yus
Mr Boych 548)
...
2.
read with interest the accounts of Ho Yin's conversation with Paul Ts'ui and T. K. Li which you sent with your letter TSX 15/64 of 26 July.
It seems likely that Ho was put up to talk to Ts'ui and Li with the aim of passing a particular message to us. The fact that he made the running is interesting, particularly as he apparently rejected an earlier approach from our side last year.
I doubt if he was simply speaking off his own bat. Naturally, what he had to say included the usual communist propaganda and distortion. I agree with much of Special Branch's commentary on his remarks, particularly on the questions of the economic value of Hong Kong, the real cost of confrontation and the power-holders in the communist hierarchy. But I think we can still extract some valuable points from the conversation.
3. Ho's message was broadly as we would have expected. The communists are interested in withdrawing gracefully from the present impasse and have no intention of resuming violence
To enable them to withdraw unless they are forced into it. successfully they require, some form of face-saving compromise with the Hong Kong Government. They are well aware that there is no hope of extracting major concessions from us on the lines
To of Macao. Ho appears to have tacitly admitted this. this extent they are prepared to settle for a 'paper victory' and Ho's insistence on the need to save face was probably intended to convey this point. At the same time they have
The nub of difficulty in keeping their militants in check.
I
the issue remains detainees and convicted prisoners. think we can afford to pay less attention to the rest of Ho's shopping list. I doubt if the communists really expect major progress immediately on reinstatement, though it is certainly in our interests to defuse this issue as far as we reasonably
But can. Still less can they expect progress over rice. as Ho implied, they do hope for some progress on detainees at least.
At
4. On this issue, the communists appear to be taking a fairly realistic line, though as usual their arguement is dressed up in aggressive phraseology. They are well aware that we can make a gesture on detainees without giving much away. Ho's message appears to have been that if we were prepared to start a steady flow of releases the communists would play their part by not making unacceptable propaganda on the issue. So far this has proved to be the case. the same time it seems clear from Ho's remarks that the communists regard moves on the detainee question as a significant effort by us to keep the temperature down. On the more long-term problem of convicted prisoners Ho appears to have gone as far as he could towards guaranteeing that the communists would not ask for too much there either. This last point may have important implications for the case of Tony Grey.
15.
A.
addocks, Esq.,
elong.
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