CONFIDENTIAL
is clearly a racket in boat passages out of Vietnam.
5. They accept however that ultimately they will probably have to allow the refugees to land. In which case they will look to us for urgent help in dealing with their burden: there are already over 5,000 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong awaiting resettlement even before the Huey Fong contingent are added. We have been in contact with the Home Office to urge them to reply to the Secretary of State's request to the Home Secretary to accept 1,500 Indo-Chinese refugees from South-East Asia, and we shall continue to press them. If the Huey Fong refugees do have to be landed in Hong Kong, we may need to ask the Home Office to increase the number they are proposing to take from Hong Kong.
6. UN Department have been in contact with Sir James Murray in Geneva, who is intending to speak to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees about the Huey Fong this afternoon and will be reporting
back.
7. Mr McLaren's submission also referred to the further large group of refugees on board another vessel, the Tung An. This vessel is now in Manila, where the local UNHCR representative has just begun interviewing refugees. He estimates that these interviews will take about three days. In the meantime, the Philippines Government are refusing to allow them to land, though they have not so far suggested that the ship should continue on to Hong Kong (its original destination) with the refugees.
8. Public opinion in Hong Kong generally continues to support the Government's policy towards the Huey Fong, although some sympathy is now beginning to be expressed for the plight of the refugees in certain quarters. In the UK press, radio and television reports on the incident have mostly been strictly factual. Although much sympathy has been expressed for the refugees, there has also been clear understanding of Hong Kong's special problems given its small size and the large number of immigrants and refugees who have already arrived there from Indo-China and from China.
29 December 1978
2
W.E. Quantill
CONFIDENTIAL
W E Quantrill
Hong Kong and General Department
R.J. Patton
29 dec.
13.