CONFIDENTIAL
Z
in Central and South America particularly Dominican Aepublic, Panama, Columbia, Costa Rica and Guatemala. In sifting through the mass of supporting documentation from applicants travelling to these countries we are faced with the problems of identifying unfamiliar languages, lapsed papers and occasional attempts at forgery.
6. Dealing with cases under (ii) and (iii) is equally difficult. Applicants whether in person or in writing, tend to be insistent that we should issue a visa. They can point to the fact that others have been granted visas in similar circumstances and we cannot, on the terms of Paul Sleightholme's letter under reference state categorically that a visa is not required. Nor can we say that private FRC travellers to Hong Kong may not, under any circumstances, travel to Hong Kong by the through trains, by air, hy hovercraft, by ship or (as I understand from the South China Morning Fost of 1 February has recently been agreed) by bus.
Both
7. We cannot continue to deal with this flow of applicants by
Those of our processing and issuing transit visas indefinitely. presently locally engaged part time staff who deal with private visa applications are both wives of Embassy officials, comprising an experienced vise examiner and a native Cantonese speaker. are leaving Peking in the next few months. Although we have authority to replace them with, in one case a full time locally engaged Chinese clerk, and in the other a Grade 10 DS officer, these with their lack of specialist qualifications will not be able to service this particular class of applicant in addition to coping with the increasing official and UK related private visa work.
8.
Three courses of action suggest themselves:-
(i) We could announce publicly, through a notice outside the
Embassy, by informing the Chinese authorities, and through standard answers to visa applicants' letters, that transit visas for Hong Kong would, from a certain date, only be issued to private travellers who could demonstrably not obtain visas for their onward destinations in China and show some legitimate reason (cost of travel, acquisition of visa) for wishing to exit China through Hong Kong. Travellers with valid onward visas would be admitted to Hong Kong but only at Lowu.
(ii) As above, but specifying further points at which FRC
passport holders could be permitted to enter Hong Kong without visas for Hong Kong. The need for some liberalisation
/of