J Hartland-Swann Esq
CONFIDENTIAL
Mr Hose O/R
HKK 243/2
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
3 10CT 1283
DESK OFFICER
INDEX
South East Asian Department
PA
Foreign and Commonwealth Office SW 1
i) e.c. Ih Heave HKD.
Th Ente. Amp 22/10
11)
Dear Hartland. Subarn,
PA -
Resettlement VRO
BRITISH EMBASSY,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
24 October 1983
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substant: or reply after the Funset visit.
HONG KONG GOVERNMENT LOBBYING ON VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
1. I enclose a copy of a telegram from Hong Kong to Hong Kong representatives in the United States asking them to begin lobbying selected US Congressmen on the Vietnamese refugee problem in Hong Kong. Though you have not apparently received this telegram, the previous telegrams, constituting a more general guidance for Hong Kong representatives abroad, were copied to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
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27.
2.
You will I expect by now be acquainted with the series of exchanges which we have had with the Americans, particularly Ambassador Douglas, the special refugees coordinator, on this problem. (See for example my letters of 20 May and 11 August to Alan Donald). We have done here as much as we could vis-a-vis the State Department in keeping Hong Kong's problems before them and this has paid some modest returns, as for example in the recent decision of the Americans to accept some early Vietnamese arrivals who had been debarred for technical reasons. But we have not sought a high profile on this issue in Congress or elsewhere for the simple reason that, even if we could engage the sympathies of these outsiders, the Administration would respond that it was for us,
as the responsible power, to take the lead in solving Hong Kong's problems. The net effect therefore would have been to lobby against ourselves.
3.
Hong Kong's latest instructions to Bill Dorward and Mark Goodfellow may also have the effect of increasing the pressure upon HMG, but I do not feel that it is for us here to tell the Hong Kong Government that they may not argue their case on an issue which is of major domestic importance for them. It is a policy judgment which leads us straight back to the central question, and despite current preoccupation with more momentous issues sooner or later this nettle will have to be grasped. I am therefore writing to Bill Dorward (not enclosed), to say that I am content that Hong Kong representatives should engage in background briefing for interested Congressmen, though I would see major difficulties in any proposal to engage in more public forms of lobbying.
CONFIDENTIAL
14.
In case