TNAG-1253-FCO40-1586-Third-countries-and-the-future-of-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 166

attached

Sir Jock Taylor KCMG

MKK040/5

YRO. ST

RECOIVAD W

6 JUN 1983

INDEX

No

Sir Edward Youde KCMG-MBI Government House HONG KONG

BRITISH EMBASSY,

BONN.

31 May 1983

brian Thr. M. Orada 1/6

Mrkoare

62

See 178

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Dear Today There are pp last your %%

1. I apologise for the long delay in answering your letter of 22 April about articles on Hong Kong in the editions numbers 11 and 12 of Der Spiegel.

2.

Spiegel is sensationalist and controversial, and it has long had a bee in its bonnet about Britain and the Empire which we have not been able to exterminate. Nevertheless, I agree with you that these articles are unhelpful. It would have been good if we were able to head them off. But we had no advance knowledge of their appearance, and I have it on reliable information that they were largely the work of Spiegel's Peking correspondent.

3. We stand very ready to do whatever we can to steer in the right direction German journalists planning to write about Hong Kong, and we shall certainly tell your Brussels office (two of whose members I am glad to learn will be here very shortly) if we get wind of media plans to publish on the subject. My much reduced Information establishment - both in the Embassy and in the Consulates-General - is less well equipped to turn up such information than it used to be,

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