MAR 23 '88 13:41 HK GOVT. SF
Fax No. : SF 213
File No. : SFG 1/82
Το From: Date:
:
SASI (Rowse)
Rept
M(W)
D(NY)
Richard Fursland
D(SF) (Johnson)
March 29, 1988.
Association of Asian Studies Session on Hong Kong
At a rough
I attended this session last Friday.
A fair count there were between 120 and 150 people present. number of them appeared either to be from Hong Kong or to be
The panelists statements supporters of the panelists, or both. were greeted with warm applause and their jokes, with laughter. By contrast Graham Johnson's attempt to introduce some balance at the end of the first session attracted little applause, and my contribution right at the end was greeted with total silence.
and more in It was very much a gathering of the "faithful",
the nature of a political rally than a serious academic occasion. Indeed viewed as such it was disreputable.
2.
The tone was set right at the beginning by Grant Goodman, whose introduction consisted of a number of cheap gibes, including
His contribution quotations from a recent Lily Wong cartoon strip,
In my view the blame for the one sided throughout was mischievous. nature of the proceedings rested largely with him and with Joanne Chang, organised the second panel.
4.
The
The first session was the better of the two. panelists put forward their views in reasonable terms, and without too much exaggeration or playing to the gallery, except that T.L. Tsim was unable to resist the temptation to go for cheap laughs. At the end, Graham Johnson made an attempt at a balanced summing up, although to be honest he was not very convincing and one
But at least there was an wonders whether his heart was in it. attempt at introducing some balance.
At half-time therefore I did not anticipate that there was going to be any need for me to intervene.
5
6.
The second session, however, was in my view a disgrace. Starting with Joanne Chang (does she have Taiwan connections?) it was downhill all the way as far as we were concerned. Michael Davies appeared to be working from a number of false assumptions about the part played in Hong Kong over the years by the British govenrment, Joseph Cheng maue a rabble rousing speech full of exaggerations and inaccuracies, and at the end as might have been expected, George Hicks re-inforced and elaborated what had been said, rather than attempting a balanced summing up.
I was therefore forced to take the platform and attempt to redress the balance. I do not think that my words had much effect, they were greeted with total silence, but half a dozen people congratulated me afterwards for trying.
/8.
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