D
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difficult for the Government in Hong Kong to justify treating Vietnamese differently from illegal immigrants from China who are sent back against their will if caught.
5.
Given the importance of maintaining the best possible relations between the territory and HMG while we are involved in delicate negotiations over its future, the Department's view is that we should act as proposed by Hong Kong. HMG's credibility with the Executive Council and that of the Governor as an effective advocate of their interests can be critically affected by this sort of case. We need to be helpful particularly in the light of the recent refusal by the Home Secretary to increase significantly the very small numbers of Vietnamese
EXCO will not for long tolerate a position in which HMG expects them to bear an indefinite burden from Vietnamese refugees and at the same time declines to help further with resettlement.
HKK243/2 refugees now allowed into the United Kingdom.
Explai
6. SEAD on the other hand consider we should not broach_the subject of forcible repatriation with the Vietnamese.. They find it difficult to imagine any assurances from the Vietnamese on which it would be possible to rely. To approach the Hanoi authorities would imply that we considered the Vietnamese Government sufficiently trustworthy and open to inspection in this way (which we do not); it would also cut right across our existing policy towards Vietnam which reflects precisely this mistrust and has been painstakingly concerted with our European partners and like-minded countries in the region. Moreover, any serious approach to the Vietnamese must in theory presuppose that we think some kind of arrangement possible and we would be prepared to go through with it. SEAD fear that we should be vulnerable to criticism on the following points as soon as it became known that we were discussing repatriation in Hanoi:
(i)
(ii)
there would be many, in UNHCR and elsewhere, who continued to regard boat people as bona fide refugees and questioned our ability to sift out economic migrants from refugees;
we would be ourselves in the very difficult position of having to defend publicly the assurances we had been given by the Vietnamese;
(iii) even if the UNHCR agreed to cooperate we would for the
first time (and unlike the closed camp policy) be "setting the pace" on handling of boat people, and it would mean abandoning the arrangements in place since the 1979 Conference;
(iv)
we would run the risk of the Vietnamese exploiting our position as demandeurs to obtain matching concessions; and in any case the Vietnamese will be tempted to take enormous propaganda advantage out of any arrangements of this kind reached with one of the major Western critics. of her human rights record;
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