CONFIDENTIAL
HKK 341|1
Hkk
177A)
I C Orr Esq APA
Hong Kong
British Embassy PEKING
↑
3 September 1979
RA
N Williams Jio 9 877/4
175
Dear Kan.
CPG PASSPORT HOLDERS WITH OUT ONWARD VISAS
1. This is to let you know that I shall be calling on Zheng Yaowen of Western European Department later this week to hand over one set of the material enclosed with your letter CR11/2091/79 of 23 August and to pass on the information contained in that letter and your earlier letter with the same reference of 17 August.
2
(72A)
2. I suspect that it would be asking too much to expect the local authorities to distinguish between documents which do guarantee the issue of a visa to the USA or elsewhere for a particular person and those which do not. 1 shall therefore stress that the evidence shows that the system of authorising exit permits on the basis of documentation other than valid visas is open to, and suffers from, all kinds of abuse. The answer therefore, is to insist on visas being obtained before exit permits are granted in all cases. As you point out, now that the US Consulate-General has opened in Guangzhou, there will be no hardship involved in obliging prospective immigrants to the USA from Southern China to come to Peking.
3. In the case of travellers to other destinations, we have established that in the case of those countries listed in the attachment to your letter of 17 August all except Surinam are either represented in Peking or have their visa
172A
CONFIDENTIAL
/affairs