TNAG-0605-FCO40-753-Political-parties-and-movements-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 3

L T

LAST

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M-Dand HK Dept

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

Telephone 01-

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would be interested,

Chancary Peking

together with a copy of the report, it You apa bath can be sent.

Mr for Fain (.dw f.i. FED 26/1

CDS Drace-Francis Esq Acting Political Adviser Government Secretariat Hong Kong

Jear Charles,

THE UNITED FRONT

MEXT

REF.

Your reference

Our reference

@ Pre tet

Date

261,

25 January 1977

End to

B) of the letter

and the report!

Chancery Peking

to it x to

j2%

1. Thank you for your letter of 24 June 1976 covering a copy of a report on the work in Hong Kong of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front. As I think I told you during //x my visit, we have been considering the report at length within the Office (rather greater length, I must confess, than I had ever intended). Herewith, anyway and for what they are worth

now, are our comments:

(a)

(b)

we agree that the report is, at least in so far as we can tell, a fair one and are grateful for a chance to see it;

we agree that the key statement in the report seems to be that objective of the United Front's activities is to form "so strong a patriotic alliance that when the time is ripe the British would have to bow before it" (paragraph 2 of the report) but, as you say in your covering letter, it is difficult to gauge just how successful the United Front's efforts are. We have noted and agree with comments in paragraphs 7 and 20 of the report, but it is frustrating not to be able to go further;

(c) an elaborate theory: the early waves of refugees

from China were mainly KMT supporters or sympathisers. Over the years, very clearly, the balance of opinion in Hong Kong has swung to favour the Communists. We guess this is partly because the Chinese image has gone up in the world recently ("patriotic appeal" diplomacy, UN membership etc) and partly because Peking has taken a more relaxed and reasonable line about Hong Kong lately, which has dispelled fears of a precipitate take-over while yet doing nothing to destroy the widely held view that Hong Kong would indeed be repossessed though at some very indefinite point in the future. However, in the slightly longer term, the more immediate these fears of a take-over become the less successful will the United Front effort be. While, at the eleventh hour, just before the telephone clicks before it rings, everybody will be communist and always has been;

DECRET