CONFIDENTIAL
PRIORITY
X
<<<<
Hong Kong has increased. Since July 1982 the HKG have placed all
new arrivals in closed camps, in the hope that this will
discourage others from coming to Hong Kong. (Previously refugees
were accommodated in open camps from which they could seek
employment in Hong Kong.) The policy appears
The policy appears to be having s om e
effect on the numbers arriving in Hong Kong: arrivals for 1984
were 39 per cent down on 1983 figures, compared with a decrease
of 11 per cent in the South East Asian region as a whole.
However there are still some 10,500 Vietnamese refugees in Hong
Kong awaiting resettlement, the highest number of any place of
first asylum in South East Asia.
10. In April 1985 the SCORRI published a report entitled
"Refugees and Asylum with Special Reference to the Vietnamese".
The report includes evidence by FCO and Home Office ministers.
It recommends that the UK should relax its immigration criteria
for family reunion cases in camps in countries of temporary
asylum: that the closed camps in Hong Kong should be abolished:
that a UK initiative should be used to attract offers of
additional resettlement places from other countries: that if
necessary and as part of a burden-sharing agreement, the UK X should accept a small share of those who are hard to settled.
ed and X have spend
speng years in camps: and that Hong Kong should accept for
settlement a proportion of ethnic Chinese from its open camps.
11. On 26 September, the Government will publish a White Paper in
response to the report. The responses to the main
recommendations relating to Hong Kong are summarised in
paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 6 above.
BACKGROUND (NOT FOR USE)
12. Resettlment outside the South East Asian region is at
present the only realistic option for the majority of the
refugees currently residing in Hong Kong's camps. Voluntary
repatriation, considered by UNHCR to be the most desirable
be the most desirable long-ter for solution refugees, peebt sys is not feasible because of the lack
of volunteers