TNAG-0197-FCO40-233-Action-against-communist-trade-union-officials-1970 — Page 38

CONFIDENTIAL

Fuli

Office of the British Chargé

d'Affaires

Peking

29 July, 1969

Dear James,

Please refer to Hong Kong telegram No. 592 to FCO of 25 July (which incidentally was not received here until 27 July) about the sentencing of communist trade union officials to imprisonment and my telegram No. 435.

2.

My reaction was studiously moderate because I do not wish to raise the temperature in the relations between the Hong Kong Government and this post, but I feel bound to say that I am disturbed by the development and by the fact that I was not informed in advance.

3.

Robin McLaren has told me something of the back- ground and there may be more to this case than I am aware of. I do however find it difficult to understand fully why the Hong Kong Government considered it necessary to issue summonses in the first place. Surely our objective should be to try to avoid gratuitiously getting into the position where we have to gaol communists at the present stage unless they are a real threat to law and order. Although it is not for me to comment in detail on Hong Kong internal affairs I cannot help feeling that some outside observers would feel the imprisonment of these particular people rather strange. As I understand it the Hong Kong Government take the view that these people were dismissed fromtheir employment with the Government Waterworks in 1967 and are ineligable, under the law, to be officials in a trade union which is limited to Chinese employees of the waterworks. But the "officials" themselves claim to have been on strike in 1967 and to be campaigning for reinstatement. In these circumstances, people unfamiliar with conditions in Hong Kong, including perhaps some M.P.s, might well think it odd that the law punishes these people merely for continuing to hold office in their union. I fully realise that the law is the law but in the present case we cannot forget that it may have international repercussions and we do not want to give the Chinese a case which would win support even among those normally opposed to them.

4.

I am copying this letter on a personal basis to Arthur Maddocks.

James Murray, Esq., C.M.G.,

Far Eastern Department,

FCO

Yours ever,

IN

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18 AUG 1969

1HKK 14/27

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(J.B. Derrson)

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