TNAG-0227-FCO40-263-Disturbances-in-Hong-Kong-19671968-1970 — Page 20

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"the trouble spread quickly from the factory area into one of the

most crowded and squalid of vowloon's resettlement districts".5

Young people, who formed the larger part of the demonstrations,

were giving vent to social frustrations.

It seemed evident that the People's Republic of China was

implicated in the rioting. Local Maoists seem to have instigated

the rioting and although they may not have been directly under

Peking's control, the peking's people's paily ordered and encouraged

violence in the Colony and the Bank of China became the headquarters

of the demonstrators. Observers reported that the rioting was led

by young Communists who had come from Canton and raceo. Peking's

attitude was antly summarised in their Five Demands of the 15th May

1967 the immediate acceptance by the Hong-Kong authorities of the

demonstrators demands, the release of all those arrested, the punishment

of those responsible(i.e. the Tong-Kong police), apologies and

compensation for the victims and a guarantee against the recurrence of

similer incidents. Such demands were obviously incompatible with the

Hong-Kong authorities main aim, the reshration of law and order. T

any case, they regarded the crisis as a purely domestic one which they

had to resolve alone, not in consultation with Peking, although they did

recognise the need not to provoke unduly their powerful neighbour.

During the summer of 1967 terrorist activities accompanied these

Communist demonstrations. On at least one occasion, the shateukok

incident of 8th July, firing took place, across the Chinese-Hong-Kong

border. In this incident Communist machine-am fire killed five

Hong-Yong policemen and a mob, estirated at. about a thousand, attacked

the police post. Later about five hundred and fifty British troops.

including (urkhas, took up fortified positions astride the border and

the situation rapidly cooled. The whole incident may have beon

provoked without Pekingĺs knowledge.

5. Far astern Economic Review, 18th May, 1967, p420.