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dissatisfied with conditions.
They try to escape by boat to Hong Kong which they know from Vietnamese refugee gossip accepts all refugees for resettlement overseas and permits them to work in the interregnum. The remainder are living on their boats along the Chinese coast and gradually making their way to Hong Kong with the knowledge of the Chinese authorities. Many pay Chinese fishing junks for a tow to Macau or Hong Kong waters and often distribute their passenger overload onto the towing vessel to avoid sinking. The two areas for departure from China are the port of Bei Hai in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the farm of Ping Sha, Doumen County, Guangdong Province. It is possible that some may come from Fujian Province when the monsoon is more favourable in late October.
7.
Indirect arrivals via China (i.e. those who have previously been settled there, not 'coast-hoppers') are a factor we need to handle with some care, although their existence is now publicly known as a result of our successfully returning to China, on 19 September, a group of over 700 such indirect arrivals. We would not want to make any guesses in public about the proportion of such people among the current arrivals, or to quote any of the figures in this letter - which are in any case approximations based on the present, imperfect, state of our knowledge. A number of resettlement countries have expressed unease about these indirect arrivals, and we would want to stick in any public comment to the general line that the problem does exist; that we investigate very carefully any suspicious cases; that we have already returned a number of identified cases with the continued co-operation of the Chinese authorities, that all such indirect arrivals are clearly separated from the genuine refugees who continue to arrive here, and whose resettlement opportunities elsewhere we do not want to see prejudiced.
CC UKMIS New York
HK&GD, FCO
WASHINGTON
PEKING
HANOI
UKMIS GENEVA
(D C Wilson)