TNAG-1850-FCO40-2625-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 51

1989-06-12 16:35 COI RADIO TECH SERVICES.

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TRANSCRIPT A SELECT COMMITTER ΟΙ ΕΟΙΟ ΚΟΤΟ

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12 JUTE 1989

CHAIRMAN (COFT);

But in the meantime, if we could just keep our focus

on Beijing and what has happened there, it looks does it

not at the moment as though the People's Republic is

slipping into a new dark age of police repression and

violence, state organisation. What do you think, as the

days go by, this is doing to the map of political opinion

in Hong Kong, how is that developing in the light of what

We Dow see emerging out of the blood and mist of Beijing?

SIR DAVID VILSON:

Well the most striking thing to which people have

reacted was the earlier bloodshed and the indiscriminata

violence of Peking · They will continue to react to the

second stage of this, the suppression of dissent, the use

or abuse of State power.

It has had quite marked effect on political

opinion in Hong Kong. You will ramanbar, and the

Committee will remember I am sure, when you were in Hong

Kong that political views were very widely split and

diverse. As a result of the events recently in China,

there has been a coming together of political opinion in

Hong Kong, which is an event of great significance.

The two Councile, AMELCO, came together on what they

saw as being the most desirable pattern of progress

towards universal suffrage, the rate of progress they

wanted to see, both on the question of elections to the