CONFIDENTIAL
No Cammara
869
R. 200
Sir D. Allen
Permanent Under Secretary
PUBLICITY FOR BRITISH SUBJECTS DETAINED IN CHINA
PROBLEM
The Chargé d'Affaires in Peking in his telegram No. 886
advocates that we give much wider publicity to the plight of
British subjects detained in China,
RECOMMENDATION.
2.
Our views are summarized in the attached draft telegram
to Peking, in which I.R.D., I.P.D., News Department and the
Hong Kong Department of the Commonwealth Office concur.
BACKGROUND AND ARGUMENT
i
3. It is true that earlier we did hold back on publicity
about British subjecta because we thought that reticence might
help their release and because we feared that too much publicity would generate pressures in this country for retaliation against the Chinese which in turn might cause
the Chinese to treat members of our Mission and British
As Mr. Cradock subjects worse than they were doing already. points out the policy of reticence does not appear to have
paid. On the other hand, there are some indications that the Chinese were embarrassed by the publicity about the burning of the Mission and the subsequent withholding of
exit visas. We know from a study of "Reference News",
restricted, selective summary of the foreign press circulated to Chinese officials, that the Chinese take careful note of
/references
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CONFIDENTIAL
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