TNAG-0176-FCO40-212-Brief-on-communist-controlled-schools-for-Lord-Shepherd-s-vi-1969 — Page 45

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SECRET AND PERSONAL

Office of the British Chargé

d'Affaires

Peking

6 May, 1969

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FEC 13C/1.

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Dear John,

You will have seen my telegram No. 290 of 3 May about the Yu Hua Middle School.

2.

There was some discussion of the case when I passed through Hong Kong and I am conscious of the difficulties involved. There then seemed to me to be two schools of thought in the Hong Kong Government about the extent to which action should be pursued against local Chinese in connection with offences committed during the confrontation in 1967. One tended to favour rigorous enforcement of the law wherever possible on the grounds that if the local communists are given an inch they will take a mile and that in the end this will undermine the authority of the Hong Kong Government, if not the security of the Colony. The other tended to favour a policy of great laissez-faire and relaxation in a period when the local communists in many fields are clearly under instructions not to cause trouble and no sort of security threat can be said to exist. Already considerable discretion is exercised by the authorities notably in not prosecuting left-wing newspapers which, I understand, could at almost any time be summonsed for The decision as to sedition or printing inflamatory material. whether or not a particular case should be pursued is often a delicate one and I have no standing to intervene in what in the last resort must remain a decision to be agreed between the Governor and London. I felt bound however to issue a serious warning that if the case develops in such a way that a term of imprisonment is imposed on Wang this could have serious consequences for detained British subjects.

3.

I am not entirely familiar with legal processes in Hong Kong and I dare say that any advice given by the Governor to the Courts would be heeded; but as I pointed out in the telegram, once the judicial process has begun I do not see how we can guarantee that it will not end in imprisonment for Wang. As you know, no British subjects have been released since Pope and Jones in July, 1968. We hope that the release of the 11 newsworkers will result in the Chinese releasing Anthony Grey but I am afraid I am not certain that the present arrangement whereby Wang Chak will be released after and not before the others will in fact be sufficient to achieve this. The Chinese are not concerned about the 11 men as such but about gaining a concession that can be presented to local communist opinion as a "victory". This is understandably just what the Government of Hong Kong wishes to avoid. Let us hope the views of local Chinese set out in Hong Kong telegram No. 230 are an overstatement, but I think it would be wrong to assume (as seemed to be the case in some advice given to the Secretary of State for an interview with Mr. Long of Reuters) that we see the release of all 11 newsworkers as the terminus ad quem of the Grey affair..

J.O. Moreton, Esq., C.M.G.,

Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Grey

R.G... 100.51

22 MAY

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