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activity, not only by maintaining law and order and its own authority,
but also by continuing carefully considered policies to effect genuine and
lasting improvements in standards of living, endeavouring to avoid genuine
grievances where possible and by gearing the public relations machinery to
meet the communist propaganda challenge.
2.
This paper examines briefly the course of communist activity during
the last 10 months in pursuance of the policy adopted at the start of the
year and attempts to assess communist policy for the immediate future and
the possible forms of implementation.
3.
Communist Activity since January, 1968, and the Fresent Position
During the last 10 months the communists have challenged
Government authority in Hong Kong on a number of occasions on major issues
as well as in many minor skirmishes.
Major issues have included throats
of importation of a large consignment of gift rice from China as a token of.
support from the Kwangtung Support Committee, a campaign to obtain reinstate-
ment of communist workers who were dismissed by their employers during the
so-called general strike last year, and the de-registration by Government of
the Chung Wah Middle School. Each was made the subject of vigorous and
protracted communist campaigns in the course of which Government was
threatened with the most serious consequences unless it capitulated to the
communist demands. However, in no instance did the actions of the
communists, either in Hong Kong or in China, match their threats. Thus
however defiant their attitude may have seemed, either in terms of
pronouncements by the .C.N.A. (Peking or Hong Kong) or, at the other end
of the scale, by action on the ground, in the event no incident was ever
brought to a point from which the communists had no means of retreat. In
short, as will be seen from succeeding paragraphs, they withdrew when it
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