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intervention would be that Hong Kong is again being less well treated than other places of first asylum. We should welcome any further evidence you can produce to support such a line.
5,
There is of course the distinct possibility that the Americans and others will ask what HMG intends to do now that its quota is used up. Ministers have considered this very care- fully but as Lord Carrington explained to the Governor on 23 June last year it would be a very difficult task indeed to accept more Vietnamese refugees given the rate of unemployment in this country. Nothing that has happened since then has changed the political climate here and I regret therefore that we shall have to explain that the UK has done a good deal given its other immigration commitments and the economic problems the country faces.
6.
This leads to the conclusion that, as far as Hong Kong is concerned, there is no alternative to continuing the present humane policy of giving first asylum to Vietnamese refugees. We fully realise the continued difficulties this imposes and greatly admire, as do many others, the way the Government and community have accepted this burden. Your record is most commendable.
7.
We will do what we can but frankly we can see little that can be done to change the position, until the worst happens and you have an evident crisis on your hands again. I am not sure whether even the outcome projected in paragraph 2 would be seen here as a crisis, given memories of 1979.
сс
Juin
Dreh.
R D Clift*
Hong Kong and General Department
HM Representatives in BANGKOK, KUALA LUMPUR, JAKARTA, MANILA
HANOI, UKMIS NEW YORK, UKMIS GENEVA, WASHINGTON, CANBERRA, OTTAWA
Director of Immigration, HONG KONG
Hong Kong Government Office, LONDON
South East Asian Department, FCO LONDON
Mr Donald FCO (on return)
PS/LPS, FCO
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