TNAG-2615-FCO40-3806-Views-of-Lee-Kuan-Yew--former-Prime-Minister-of-Singapore--o-1992 — Page 15

Mr Ricketts

Hong Kong Department

Hong

From: J T Masefield

Date: 23 December 1992

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3).

HONG KONG AND LEE KUAN YEW

(24),

1. As you recommended, I telephoned the Acting High Commissioner for Singapore, Mr Thirunagaran, on 22 December, saying that I wished to bring him up to date with developments since Mr Lee Kuan Yew's remarks on Hong Kong and China.

I asked him in particular if he had seen a Reuters report purporting to record a rebuke to Singapore. Mr Thirunagaran said that he was not fully up to date, but that he had been telephoned by the press to say that there were reports that he had been summoned to the Foreign Office, and to enquire whether this was true. I explained that we were not either summoning the Acting High Commissioner to the Foreign Office or rebuking anybody. We did, however, wish to place our views on record in London, as our High Commissioner had already done in Singapore with the Foreign Minister. I then ran through the three tirets in para 4 of your minute. I concluded by telling the Acting High Commissioner that we would be briefing News Department to respond to questions in the terms set out in para 5 of your minute.

2. Mr Thirunagaran listened carefully but made no comment, nor did he attempt to argue with any of the points that I had made. Indeed, my impression was that, having heard that he was to be summoned to the Foreign Office and perhaps rebuked, Mr Thirunagaran was immensely relieved to find that he did not have to report back to Singapore that such an event had taken place, in a telegram which would doubtless have been scrutinised by Lee Kuan Yew, as well as the Foreign Ministry, to see how well Mr Thirunagaran had responded.

HKCD 021/9

J. F. Carefell.

J T Masefield

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