The South China Morning Post played a little known but significant role in helping to heal the rift between authorities on the mainland and in Hong Kong following six months of rioting and demonstrations in 1967 at the height of the Cultural Revolution.
In the summer of 1967, while Red Guards were spreading chaos and destruction in China, leftist workers and students staged similar demonstrations in Hong Kong. These persisted until October. When the trouble subsided, Hong Kong was left a divided community, and tensions lingered for more than a year between the government and its counterparts across the border.
As passions began to cool, the Post made contact with the official representatives in Hong Kong of the Chinese government, the Xinhua News Agency. Several journalists who had contacts in Xinhua suggested a social get-together.
Our China editor, David Chen, got a series of lunches going with senior officials at Xinhua, which I later began to attend. These became regular, and were held at least every two months. As relations improved, the variety of the menu enjoyed at the lunches reflected the warming of the relationship.
They were often held in the dining room of the Hong Kong Jockey Club in Happy Valley.
It seemed we were making progress, and so I decided to tip off a senior government official about the meetings. A positive response came back, and so an afternoon tea meeting was arranged in strict secrecy between a senior representative of the Xinhua News Agency and a senior official of the government.