C.S. 41A
2600078
20,000-10/63-B32835
REF.
SCR.1/4841/55
SECRET
COLONIAL SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
16th May, 1968
14.
Dear Buny
I hope it is in order to let you know that the Local Intelligence Committee had some doubts about one passage in Mr. Thomson's despatch HWB 13/7 of 16th April, 1968, commenting on H.E.'s despatch No. 239 of 15th February; and we thought it might be useful to put them on record informally. I am signing this letter in the absence of the Secretary through illness.
2.
We do not wholly agree with the theory in paragraph 3 of the despatch that it should be possible to rely indefinitely on the P.L.A. or the more moderate elements in the Peking leader- ship to prevent a return to the extreme policies adopted towards Hong Kong in 1967. The basic point is surely that the relative strengths of the three major power groups mentioned cannot be assumed to be static. The extremists, for example, seemed to have regained a good deal of influence in internal policies during the last month or two. We agree that factional distur- bances in the Chinese provinces, even including Kwangtung, are not likely to have a very significant effect on Chinese policies towards Hong Kong. But the problem really is how far an increase of extremist influence at the centre in Peking would lead to a recrudescence of extreme and violent policies here. On this point it seems to us that it would be rash to make any easy assumptions.
LAST
REF.
#GXI
REF.
21
FRED IN
ARGEN
15.50
22MAY 1963
4WA 13/2
Yours
ever
Authoy Emit
(T.A.K. Elliott)
W.S. Carter Esq., C.v.o., Foreign Office,
Downing Street, LONDON S.W.1.
De Smith
Ş İzmit this' concerns
The Fi's contribution to the
in which case
we
despatch
SECRET
must consult them.
1582 2115
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.