TNAG-1816-FCO40-2577-Media-in-Hong-Kong-Registration-of-Local-Newspapers-(Amendme-1988 — Page 59

CONFIDENTIAL

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

Telephone 01-

270 2650

tile

29

D G Martin Esq

Office of the British Senior

Representative

Sino-British Joint Liaison Group St John's Building, 33 Garden Road PO Box 528, HONG KONG

Your reference

Our reference ARPALJ

Date

3 August 1988

HKD 301/3

RECHA

POISTRY

4 AUG 1988

Į

Dear Dong,

DEALING WITH THE PRESS

INDE

1. Many thanks for your letter to Christopher Hum (on leave) which I have discussed with Robin McLaren. And thanks too to Dick Clift, Alyson Bailes and Carsten Pigott for their helpful comments.

2.

It was of course entirely to be expected that there would be a good deal of press interest in the JLG office in the immediate aftermath of 1 July. In the normal run of things, that interest

But it could should tend to fall away once the novelty wears off. well be sustained artificially if the press were to perceive you as being particularly frank and forthcoming and as a source of eminently useable quotations. I doubt whether it would be in anyone's interest, least of all yours, for that to happen!

3.

A further problem, as we see it, is that the Hong Kong press tend not always to respect confidences, nor to draw any clear distinction between attributable and non-attributable briefings. It can therefore be difficult to speak off the record' since it is impossible to be certain that what is said, or something approximating to it, will not appear in print and be attributed to the speaker.

4. All this leads us to conclude that whilst it was right for you to see a fair amount of the press in the early stages, it would now be sensible for you to aim to lower your profile with the press and to be generally less accessible to them. As Dick Clift suggests you should, whenever you judge it necessary, simply decline to comment on matters that are particularly sensitive.

5. We also agree that it would be neither practicable nor desirable for you to seek to co-ordinate all press lines with the Chinese JLG office as a matter of course. There could be instances when this would be necessary, but each case would need I doubt that the Chinese side would to be judged on its merits.

/in any

CONFIDENTIAL