TNAG-1158-FCO40-1438-Visit-by-Margaret-Thatcher--UK-Prime-Minister--to-Hong-Kong--1982 — Page 164

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LETTER

DSR 11 (Revised)

DRAFT:

mini /letter/teleletter/despatch/note

FROM:

~

Private Secretary

DEPARTMENT:

TEL. NO:

TYPE: Draft/Final 1+

Reference

SECURITY CLASSIFICATION

TO:

Your Reference

Top Secret

A J Coles Esq

Secret

No 10 Downing Street

Copies to:

Confidential

Restricted

Unclassified

PRIVACY MARKING

CAVEAT...

..In Confidence

Enclosures-flag(s)...........

SUBJECT:

PRIME MINISTER'S VISIT TO JAPAN, CHINA AND HONG KONG

1.

Thank you for your letter of 1 February. We

have a few preliminary ideas.

2. There will certainly be requests from journalists

to meet the Prime Minister before she leaves. We

have already had at least one approach from a Japanese

newspaper. We think that it would be as well to set

aside time both for a group of Japanese journalists

and a group of Chinese journalists. The form of any

such meeting could be decided later, but one possibility

would be to invite each set of journalists to submit

questions in advance and for the answers to be prepared

in advance, the interview itself being largely confined

to photographs and a few general comments. I do not

think that it would be possible to take both Chinese

and Japanese at the same time. There is also the possi-

bility of recommending that the Prime Minister grant an

exclusive interview to one Japanese newspaper or

television channel, and perhaps to a Chinese representati

There might also be pressure from Hong Kong journalists

/for an