ECRAT
5.
(b) the press were told on 26 January (paragraph 6
of Hong Kong telegram No. 153) that this amphibio a exercise was to take place. It attracted little attention. But, because of developments in China, there is an unusually large number of foreign correspondenta in Hong Kong, as well as a B.D.C. team. It might be possible to dissuade the British press from playing up the exercise; but this is by no means certain, and the foreigners will write it up as they wish.
(c) the Chinese will in any case know of the exercise
and become aware of its nature. In commenting en likely Chinese reactions in his telegram No. 142, Hopson accepts that we might get away with it provided there is no American participation. However, he gives reasons for concluding also that the risk of a violent Chinese reaction cannot be excluded. We consider that there is a very real risk that the Chinese would regard a large military exercise of this nature in Hong Kong at this time as a military provocation and that they would react violently to it. The present extreme phase of the Cultural Revolution, the recent successful pressure exerted on the Portuguese in Lacao and the fierce action now being taken by the Chinese in Peking against foreign Embassies and their personnel (including the French) support this view, Hopson points out, the Chinese leadership might welcome another foreign diversion. There could also be a spontaneous reaction by local Chinese in Hong Kong or Red Guards in the neighbouring Chinese provinces, which Peking would find it difficult to discountenance, even if they wanted to do BO.
As
The Governor is clearly in two minds. He agrees that the exercise could cause serious difficulties; he says that he would have been far happier if it had not been planned and that, if a decision had to be taken now, he would almost certainly have to advise cancellation as being the only safe course. He suggests that the exercise might proceed under certain conditions set out in his paragraph 9, but I am sorry to say that these conditions do not seem to us desirable or practicable. The first is unacceptable: to stop the exercise
SECRET
/after
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