Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1
Telephone 01- 930 8440 Xn MA615
A E Donald Esq Political Adviser Hong Kong
Your reference
Our reference
Date
6 September 1974
$
Dear Alan
"HONG KONG: A CASE TO ANSWER"
1.
You have probably already heard that a critical study of long Kong's administration and social economy was published under this title by the Hong Kong Research Project and Spokesman Books, for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, on 5 September.
2. I am afraid that so far we have only one copy, which the publishers sent to the Secretary of State. However, I understand that the long Kong Government Office have already sent copies to Denis Bray. We have not yet had time to examine the study thoroughly; but at first sight it seems unusually well documentated and presented and I expect that, despite its blatant one-sidedness, it will provide some useful ammunition for Hong Kong's critics.
3.
You will see from the enclosed cuttings that James Fenton has already taken the opportunity to publish a characteristically slanted article in this week's New Statesman, and that Mr James Sillars HP (who launched the study at a press conference) has said that he hopes the report will result in the appointment of a Royal Commission. Guardian report also makes it clear that the report is the work of the Association for Radical Sauth-East Asian Studies about which we had correspondence last year.
The
44. We are not at this stage intending to make any official response to all this, though I understand that Teddy Kidd may be interviewed by the BBC on Monday evening. I assume that the publication of the report was timed to coincide with the TUC motion on Hong Kong, due to be debated today. We have not yet heard the outcome of that debate, though I gather there was a chance that the item would not be reached before the conference closed. We will of course let you know if anything · startling emerges. As James Fenton says in his article, I doubt if this will be an election issue. The final impact may therefore be small, but of course none of this helps. You may think that the Governor should know of all this.
Encls 2
Yours
Andrew
A C Stuart
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Department
CONFIDENTIAL
+
silent' copies Mr Mäle
Sir D Watson
Page 105Page 106
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