TNAG-1024-FCO40-1274-Visit-by-Lord-Carrington--Secretary-of-State-for-Foreign-and-1981 — Page 10

22612

Private Secretary

c.c.

HK&GD

INTERVIEW IN HONG KONG

Enter

AKK 02612

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY NO. 51 09 APR 1981

DESK OFFICER

INDEX

مثل

ΡΑ

& 04

REGISTRY

Action Taken

Ah 19

1.

The Asian Wall Street Journal has asked for

an on the record interview with the Secretary of State

with a view to printing a verbatim text on the editorial

page, as they did on his visit in 1979.

2.

The Asian Wall Street Journal has a small

but influential circulation in East Asia. Mr Robert Keatley,

who conducted the interview last time, is a reliable and sympathetic journalist.

3.

Nevertheless, I think that they have had

their turn. Lord Carrington would be open to the charge of

favouritism if he gave a second exclusive interview to them.

S3A

4.

When the Far East tour was to have taken

place last autumn, we had provisionally agreed to arrange

instead an on the record interview with the Far East Economic

Review, which is a well established English language current

affairs review based in Hong Kong and widely read throughout

Asia.

5.

Possible alternatives are the new Hong Kong edition of the "International Herald Tribune" and the Hong Kong papers, the "South China Morning Post and the 'Hong Kong Standard. An interview with a purely local paper would be

open to the objection that it would concentrate too much on

parochial issues and on the dominant, but difficult, question of the future of the Colony.

6./