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Mr Stratton
CONFIDENTIAL
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INDEX
F'S
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN HONG
KONGN
HKK 843/1
29 DEC 1978
RC
51 Serretary 17 States,
tion 1.
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1. In his submission of 27 December, Mr McLaren reported on the problems facing the Hong Kong Government following the arrival off Hong Kong of the Panamanian registered, Taiwanese owned ship Huey Fong with 2,700 Vietnamese refugees on board.
2. The Hong Kong Government have continued to refuse the ship permission to enter Hong Kong and have done their best to persuade the Captain to continue his journey to his original destination in Taiwan. He has steadfastly refused to do so, claiming at one stage that the refugees had threatened to kill him if he moved the ship (these stories of threatened violence are still unsubstantiated:
they appear to have been somewhat exaggerated). The Hong Kong Government have kept the vessel supplied with food and water and provided medical aid where necessary, including removing a few of the refugees to hospital.
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3. The Captain of the ip has said that he would only be prepared to sail on to Taiwan if he received a guarantee that the refugees would be allowed to land there. The Taiwanese, however, have not given any indication that they are prepared to stand by their previously declared policy of accepting ethnic Chinese refugees brought to Taiwan by foreign registered ships whose first scheduled port of call after picking the refugees up was a Taiwanese port. The Hong Kong Government have asked to seek the assistance of the Americans via our Embassy in Washington, it urge the Taiwanese
in
to respect the first port of call principle. We have asked the Embassy in Washington to do this, though, as the Hong Kong Government themselves realise, the Americans do not of course now have much leverage with the Taiwanese. We are also considering whether there are other ways of bringing pressure to bear on the Taiwanese:
though the prospects are not very hopeful.
4. The Hong Kong Government intend to continue their efforts to get the ship to leave for Taiwan, though they realise that they are unlikely to succeed. In that case they intend to leave the ship where it is for some time (providing supplies and medical aid when necessary). They believe this is essential as a deterrent both against those who try to blackmail them into breaking the first port of call principle and against those who are running what
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CONFIDENTIAL