BY BAG
SCR 4/3571/62
J FR Martin Esq
SECRET
Government
Far Eastern Department FCO
NICK
13 October, 1976
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DOUBLE TENTH
In the last sentence of paragraph 2 of my letter of 22 September about Mao's death, I said that we would be watching for a KMT riposte on the Double Tenth anniversary this year.
In the event, the day itself passed off as usual without major incident, despite it being a Sunday. But we certainly had some watching to do during the preceding week.
2.
What in essence seems to have happened is that the death of Mao reopened the unhealed wounds left behind by the Chinese civil war in Hong Kong. This was in contrast with the death of Chiang Kai Shek last year, which passed off relatively unnoticed. Inevitably the communists here have felt duty bound, as Chiao Kuan-hua was in New York, to re-emphasise their Maoist orthodoxy, guard against insults to their dead leader, and reject any suggestions that his policies might now be changed. Paradoxically therefore, it was the communists who seemed to make more of a fuss about the Double Tenth than the KMT. Although the latter had complained vigorously about the French obituary film on Mao shown on HKTVB, there was no sign that they were intending to change their basic policy of avoiding public confrontations with the Government or the communists. However, the latter took advantage of an incident in which two of their workers were beaten up on the way to night shift at the Hong Kong Spinners factory on 23 September, to turn up the volume of their propaganda to full blast. The fact that it was the 20th anniversary of the Tsuen Wan riots proved a useful peg on which they were able to issue warnings to the public and in particular to selected, susceptible members of the Consular Corps, drawing their attention to the gruesome death of the Swiss/Consul's wife in 1956 at the hands of KMT rioters. the week before the Double Tenth itself, their propaganda organs were beginning also to attack the alleged indifferent
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