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meant send them back. He agreed that this was what he meant. But the problem should be dealt with in a "civilised" fashion, taking account of special circumstances. These people were not the same as illegal immigrants. said that we were now looking into the question of what to do. One difficulty was the length of permits. Guangzhou was comparatively good in limiting visit permits to three months; the rest of Guangdong Province was not so good; and Fujian was a great deal worse with about 20% of permits
being for a year or more.
4.
Mr Chang Jiannan (Deputy Director, provincial
PSB) said that there was great pressure from people to go
and visit relatives. In the past this had been a common practice. Now, once they got permission to go, they felt they might not get it a second time for many years;
therefore they simply remained in Hong Kong. I said that
we must find a system by which more people could make
genuine visits. The essential first step was that those
who came on visits should return. Governor Liu said that specific ways of achieving this could be discussed between the
two sides.
Cross-border Liaison Meetings
5.
Mr Chang Jiannan said the border liaison talks
were going well. I asked him how he saw them developing
after the planned review which would follow the fourth
meeting. He said he thought procedures could be simplified. Separately Mr Fu Fen (Deputy Director, Foreign Affairs Office) spoke at greater length. He said that the Chinese side would prefer a system by which problems could be tackled as they arose and between liaison officers. They thought the present monthly meetings covered to many topics, were too formal, and had too many people present. I said we wanted to start with at least four regular meetings to enable the
two sides to get to know each other. Once this was
achieved we could follow whatever system was most suitable. It was agreed that future procedures could be discussed at the next meeting.
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