Comment on a Xinhua News Agency Report Concerning the Sharp Decline in the Supply of Non-staple Foodstuffs from the Mainland to Hong Kong
(25 January 1959)

Comrade Xiaoping [1]:
This document [2] is useful; please have it distributed for the comrades attending the meeting [3] to read.
[1]
Xiaoping, i.e., Deng Xiaoping, then General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

Mao Zedong
25 January

[2]
This report, written by the Hong Kong Correspondent Group of the Xinhua News Agency and published in *Internal Reference* (Issue No. 2691), compiled and printed on 22 January 1959, stated that Hong Kong’s non-staple foodstuffs have historically relied overwhelmingly on supplies from the mainland. Over the past month, the quantity supplied from the mainland to Hong Kong has dropped sharply, causing great agitation among people from all walks of life. Among the vast majority of middle-of-the-road and backward residents, feelings of fear, confusion, and discontent are showing, along with many muddled views. Among progressive personages, understanding is relatively clear, but various misgivings still exist. The reactionaries are currently seizing this opportunity to carry out virulent reactionary propaganda.

[3]
Referring to the conference of Party secretaries of all provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions then being held in Beijing.