RESTRICTED
financi on the British voluntary agencies who are
responsible for the reception of refugees. Apart from this,
refugees
the Home Office do not like quotas and, as you know, we
already have an open-ended commitment with regard to/rescued
by UK registered shipping.
4.
It might be helpful for you to know that the UK has
already taken 852 Indo-Chinese refugees.
The following table
gives the breakdown:
Refugees here when their
countries fell and accepted as refugees
Cambodians
136
Laotians
48
Vietnamese
147
Total
331
Refugees accepted from abroad
Small boat refugees 258 Those accepted on the strength of a tie or connection:
Cambodians r Chinese
Laotians
Vietnamese
15
4
77
167
Total
521
5. The above figures do not include 42refugees picked up
by a British vessel in respect of whom we have recently given
the Taiwanese an acceptance guarantee. In addition, we shall
be accepting 61 Vietnamese refugees, who have no other
opportunity of resettlement, from Hong Kong, and, at the
special request of UNHCR, will be receiving in the next few
days seven Vietnamese children from Malaysia.
6. We have recently heard from Hong Kong that the Americans
with UNHCR approval, have proposed an informal international
meeting to be held on 20-21 September in Kuala Lumpur to
discuss the Indo-Chinese refugee problem. This sounds a
sensible idea and should at least provide an opportunity for
Hong Kong's own special problems in this regard to be given
/some