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Strong Protest to British Government


[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 9, #6, Feb. 4, 1966, p. 4.]


China has again lodged a strong protest with the British Government for offering Hongkong as a base of operations to the United States for expanding its war of aggression against Vietnam and for making war threats against the People’s Republic of China. The protest was contained in a note handed to the British Charge d’Affaires in Peking on February 4.

The note says that two nuclear-powered U.S. naval vessels—the aircraft carrier Enterprise and the warship Bainbridge—taking part in the war of aggression against Vietnam, arrived in Hongkong on January 26. By January 31, there were assembled in Hongkong nine U.S. warships which will again proceed to the seas off Vietnam to join in operations. The note drew attention to the fact that the frequent visits to Hongkong by U.S. naval ships took place at a time when the United States is steadily expanding its war of aggression against Vietnam, brazenly declaring on January 31 the resumption of its bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and wildly clamouring for an attack on China. Henry L. Miller, commander of U.S. Carrier Division 3, who is stationed on the Enterprise, met correspondents in Hongkong and shouted about war and made nuclear threats. “All the facts show,” says the note, “that the United States is more unscrupulously using Hongkong as a base of operation in its war of aggression against Vietnam and attempting further to use Hongkong as a spring-board for its future attack on China’s mainland.”

The note recalls that on September 1, 1965, the Chinese Government lodged a stern protest with the British Government against the latter’s allowing the United States to use Hongkong as a base for aggression. The British Government equivocated in its reply note, but the fact is that, instead of taking effective measures to check various U.S. war preparations in Hongkong, it has since gone further to allow the United States to use Hongkong as a base for expanding its aggressive war and for threatening China’s security. According to reports, in 1965 U.S. aggressor warships entered Hongkong more than 300 vessel/times, and in the period between November 1965 and January 1966 the number was more than 100 vessel/times.

The Chinese note stresses: “U.S. activities of war preparation in Hongkong involve grave consequences for Hongkong. In the circumstances in which China’s security is being increasingly menaced, the Chinese Government wishes once again to advise the British Government to weigh carefully the advantages and disadvantages, the gains and losses. The British Government must immediately take effective measures to stop all U.S. activities of war preparation in Hongkong and prevent Hongkong from serving as a base for U.S. aggressive activities any more. If the British Government refuses to come to its senses, but willingly acts as an accomplice of the U.S. aggressors and insists on being hostile to the peoples of Vietnam, China and the Southeast Asian countries, it will certainly eat the bitter fruits of its own making.”

Renmin Ribao published an article by Commentator on January 31 warning the British Government for putting Hongkong at the disposal of the U.S. aggressors and for becoming more deeply involved than ever in the U.S. war of aggression in Vietnam.


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