Canberra, 21 April 1970
Confidential
Australian Contacts with Communist Chinese in Hong Kong
The External Affairs Representative in the Australian Trade Commission, Hong Kong, Mr Burgess,2 has drawn to our attention indications that ‘Communist Chinese officials in Hong Kong have recently been authorised to have fairly extensive contact with foreign officials, including Australians’. The purpose of this submission is to seek your guidance regarding our response.
2. The Senior Trade Commissioner3 and visiting members of the Wheat Board are at present the officers authorised to have official or semi-official contact with Communist Chinese representatives in Hong Kong.
3. Since January, invitations have been received by the Trade Commissioner to meetings of the Hong Kong ‘Marco Polo Club’. This Club was active from 1957 to 1967 but lapsed during disturbances in 1967 in Hong Kong. It was reinaugurated on 30th January. It serves as a forum for contact between Communist Chinese officials working in Hong Kong and selected foreigners. The Communist Chinese who attend represent such organisations as the Bank of China, the New China News Agency, China Resources, shipping companies, etc. The members of the Canadian, Belgian, West German, Italian and Japanese Trade Commissions or Consulates in Hong Kong, none of whose governments recognise Peking, have been invited and attend these meetings. The U.S. and British appear so far to be specifically excluded, even though the British maintain a diplomatic mission in Peking.
4. The American Consulate General in Hong Kong believes that the Marco Polo Club has the ‘blessing of Peking’ and that its revival and other developments are indicative of a new Chinese disposition to be more outgoing in their contacts in Hong Kong.
5. On 26th March an External Affairs officer in our Hong Kong office attended a function at the Marco Polo Club, in place of the Trade Commissioner who could not attend, and was instructed to report on the meeting so that the question of further attendances could be considered. The report of this officer (Mr P. Kennedy, Second Secretary) is attached.
6. The External Affairs Representative in Hong Kong, Mr Burgess, has reported that there would appear to be no disadvantage in informal contact with the Chinese through attendance at Marco Polo Club functions. On the basis of Mr Kennedy’s report we concur in this assessment.
7. Official Australian representation in Hong Kong consists of the Australian Government Trade Commissioner, to whose staff are attached officers of other Commonwealth Departments, including our own and the Department of Immigration. The Trade Commissioner is already authorised and accustomed to have contacts with Communist Chinese representatives in Hong Kong. To extend the practice at present followed to cover more junior members of his staff, even though they belong to the Department of External Affairs, is unlikely to lead the Peking authorities to conclude that there has been a change in basic Australian policy. In the unlikely event that the attendance of an External Affairs officer at the Marco Polo Club became known in Australia and gave rise to criticism, the action could be explained on the grounds that the Club was a social one and that any contacts that take place there with mainland Chinese were of an unofficial kind.
8. It is therefore recommended that the External Affairs Representative in Hong Kong be authorised to accept invitations from the Marco Polo Club, to be attended by himself or by a junior colleague at his discretion, and that he should on each occasion submit a report to the Department.4
M.R. Booker
First Assistant Secretary
Division II
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38,· viii]
1 McMahon had succeeded Freeth as Minister for External Affairs on 11 November 1969.
2 J.R. Burgess.
3 R.J. Bareham.
4 A handwritten annotation by McMahon dated 22 April reads: ‘I don’t agree. The timing would be bad. If we have already tested Trade, I would now want Mr McEwen’s view. He could know I think the timing is bad’.