TNAG-2277-FCO40-3276-Hong-Kong-and-the-media-1991 — Page 30

Belongs on

Media/Publicili

3646

Birls

CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL

301/1 this exte

Fli⋅ HKD

Foreign & Commonwealth

Office

London SW1 2AH

5 November 1991

(96) 160)

A M Wood Esq CMG

WASHINGTON

Diss Andeen

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to Float

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LOBBYING ON HONG KONG POLITICAL ISSUES IN THE US

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3. Bu 2 weeks.zzz

1. One of the recurrent problems in dealing with Hong Kong here is that the British (and US) media present such a one-sided view of political developments in the territory.

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2. It was ever thus, but a recent case in point clear-cut than most has been the treatment of the elections and their aftermath. No one would want to deny Martin Lee credit for his success. But the international media has been feeding out of his hand, and the fact that he can place an article in The Independent or the New York Times without any trouble means that his views feed directly into the Parliamentary/Congressional bloodstream. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong press have been taking a much more nuancé line, putting the Martin Lee phenomenon into perspective, and recognising that other strands of opinion exist. But this more balanced view seldom percolates to the international press.

3. I am writing to you now because, when the Governor of Hong Kong was over here last month, he and the Secretary of State discussed what could be done about this, and one of the ideas that came up related to the US. The Secretary of State wondered whether it would be possible to do more in Washington to get our views on Hong Kong across both in the media and on the Hill. This is not in any way to impugn your current efforts. We are most grateful for all that you and the Ambassador have been doing to get across our point of view. And we appreciate the hard work which Stephen Pattison, Richard Ralph and Mike Price already put in on this front.

4. The model in the Secretary of State's mind, however, was the highly effective mechanism which has been put in place over the years to deal with Northern Ireland issues in the US. I hope that we would not need to devote quite the same resources to Hong Kong issues, but for the next six years Hong Kong (and the related VBP problem) will remain right at the forefront of Ministerial concerns as a set of issues which could cause them a lot of political grief at home if they go wrong.

7/

KGBABH/1

CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL

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