TNAG-2769-FCO40-3986-Hong-Kong-and-the-media-interviews--press-briefings-and-the--1994 — Page 136

TC Video wall (2)

Stewart estab WT6

BRIAN STEWART P6 - SYNC A Hong Kong Spy Nest

One of the major intelligence requirements demanded of MI6 by the governemin is in Far East Asia - in Hong Kong and China. Britain is trying to disengage with honour from one of our last remaining clonies. By treaty Hong Kong will be handed over to China in 1997. But the talks between

Londn and Beijing on the tricky political issue of how the huge communist monolith is to absorb the tiny capitalist enclave have run into serious difficulties and are on the verge of disgaray. Britain has a huge financial and political investment in the territory and MI6 has been tasked to provide secret intelligence acquired by every traditional method to heop govenor Chris Patten when he faces the Chinese negotiators.

Brian Stewart's second life is as the representative in Hong Kong for a large British electonics company. In his first life he obtained a experience of the intelligence community working in the cabinet office in Whitehall and later in a series of unusual postings including Hanoi, Beijing and Hong Kong. Discretion prompts him to say no more than that he has had staff experience of the intelligence community.

It is full of diplomats, full of foreign agents, full of intelligence officers, and no doubt there are spies as well, it is a microcosm of the intelligence world. There will be people in this town always who are doing the straight forward collection job, and there will be people in this town evaluating the intelligence and people in this town assessing the intelligence, people putting it together in report form, so that their governments are well informed, you have a microcosm of the whole intelligence world here.

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