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CONFIDENTIAL
Secretary of State on his discussions with the Governor of
Hong Kong about the Grey case.
keep the position open.
Our answer therefore must
4.
You will remember that during discussions with
Flags A B and C
However, I did
Mr. Moreton on 19 May, the Chinese Chargé d'Affaires stated
that "If all patriotic journalists were released, Grey's
freedom of movement would be restored. The Chinese
Government means what it says." Although I regarded this
as an unequivocal and formal assurance that the release of
the eleven newsworkers would result in Mr. Grey's release, we
decided not to make this statement public since we wished to
avoid committing ourselves publicly as to whether it should
be regarded as a firm assurance or not.
envisage at the time that we might eventually have to make
some use of it in answer to a Parliamentary Question.
Chinese might think it rather odd if in answering a question
on this subject we appeared to ignore entirely Ma's conver-
sation with Mr. Moreton. In addition, I see some advantage
in pinning the Chinese down to this position in public.
will then be more difficult for them to change their ground
later. The reply therefore follows closely the words of
Mr. Ma which we believe were carefully chosen for him by his
Government. At the same time we must avoid being drawn in
supplementaries on our interpretation of his statement.
5.
The
In drafting the second sentence of the answer we have
not in effect precluded the possibility of the premature
It
CONFIDENT I AL
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