HWB 13/7
HOA HONG
CONFIDENTIAL
ル
COMMONW-ALTH OFFICE
LONDON, 8. F. 1.
16 April, 1968
sir,
I have the honour to refer to your Despatch No.239 of 13 February, 1968 in which you review the principal developments that have taken place in Hong Kong since June 1967.
2.
I consider your report to be an admirably accurate and objective history of events during the period under review. It wa regrettably inevitable that it should need to be very largely devoted to raporting on the course of Communist confrontation in the Colony. The account of the build-up of the Communist campaign last year, the degree and manner of support from the Chinese People's Government and in particular, the way that the incident 8 July at Sha Tau Kok triggered off the subsequent campaign of violence, confirm the view that the confrontation was an overspill of the cultural revolution in China. This, among other things, resulted in a weakening of the channel of control over local Hong Kong Comminista. But for the admirably firm and patient policy of the Hong Kong Government and the strong backing it received from the great majority of the people of Hong Kong, the Chinese People's Government might have been tempted or obliged to give full support to the efforts of their local supporters, to disturb the status quo and to undermine authority in the Colony.
3. I do not dissent from the conclusions in paragraph 35 of your despatch concerning internal developments in China, but my advisers and I doubt whether Hao Tse-tung and the extremists would be allowed by the rore moderate elements or by the People's Liberation Army to mount another campaign al milar to that of last year, even if they wiched to do so. The present disturbances in certain areas of China, including the Kwangtung Province, though considerable, seca to be less violent than those which took place last yer; and although it may be some time before order and stability can be restored, they appear unlikely to influence Chinese policy adversely so far as Hong Kong is concerned.
4. However, the fact that, apart from isolated incidents, the local Communists have now abandoned the use of violence to achieve their ends in the Colony must leave us under no misapprehensions. There is, perhaps, a danger that the efficiency and effectiveness
GCV KNOR,
SIR DAVID TRANCHI, X.J.E.4., M.C.
ETC.,
ETC., STC..
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