CONFIDENTIAL
D
O W
E
Vietnamese Refugees in Hong Kong
23. The attached policy paper and HKD's covering
submission of 18 April, explain fully
fully the background
to the current situation. The Secretary of State
decided in response to the submission that the
possibility of repatriating refugees involuntarily to
Vietnam should not be pursued. He agreed that we
should seek to persuade the Home Office that the UK should both take the 400-500 family reunion cases, and also indicate a willingness to accept further (perhaps
undefined) numbers for resettlement here in future
years.
24. Meanwhile in April the Home Affairs Sub-Committee
on Race Relations and Immigration (SCORRI) published a
report entitled "Refugees and Asylum with Special
It recommended
camp s in Hong Kong should
centres;
reunion cases should
Reference to the Vietnamese".
inter alia that the closed
be abolished and their inmates transferred to open
that the UK's immigration criteria for family
be relaxed in respect of
Vietnamese in
camp s in countries of temporary asylum;
and that this UK initiative should be used to attract
offers of additional resettlement places from other
countries for refugees now in Hong Kong.
countries'
25. After lengthy correspondence between the Secretary
of State and the Home Secretary, the Home Office have
agreed to accept the family reunion cases recommended
by SCORRI (some 500); and, depending on other
willingness to respond to Hong Kong's
needs, to consider accepting further limited numbers
of refugees from Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Government have similarly agreed to consider absorbing into Hong
Kong a limited number of Vietnamese refugees of ethnic
Chinese origin who are at present
at present in open camps in the
territory, provided this forms part of a concerted
international effort to
to reduce drastically the size of
the refugee camp population in Hong Kong. Hong Kong
CONFIDENTIAL