Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
87.
From The Minister of State
Richard Luce MP
Jean willie's
11 March 1985
PA I. u 14/2 buze
72
Thank you for your letter of 26 February to Geoffrey Howe, on behalf of your constituents Miss Jill Reynolds and Mr Truc, about the problem of the Vietnamese refugees who are in Hong Kong awaiting resettlement. As Minister of State with responsibility for the Far East, I have been asked to reply.
I have indeed received copies of the British Refugee Council (BRC)'s publication "Behind Barbed Wire", which you enclosed, and I have discussed the problem with David Ennals, Chairman of the Asia Committee of the BRC, and some of his colleagues.
The question of the admission of refugees into this country falls within the responsibility of the Home Office. I am therefore copying our corresponCence to David Waddington. I would however point out that Britain has accepted some 19,000 Vietnamese refugees, most of them from Hong Kong, for resettlement. We also have a continuing international commitment to resettle family reunion and ship rescue cases.
On the general question of the 11,700 refugees who are at present in Hong Kong, the following background information may be of interest to your constituents.
Hong Kong has shouldered an enormous refugee burden in recent years. More than half a million people have left Vietnam by boat since 1975 and of these over 100,000 have arrived in Hong Kong. Although it is one of the most densely populated places in the world, Hong Kong has turned none away: all have been given temporary asylum pending resettlement. Hong Kong has also accepted 14,500 displaced Indo- Chinese for permanent settlement.
For the first few years the rate of resettlement from the refugee centres in Hong Kong was satisfactory, but by 1982 it had fallen considerably while large numbers of boat people continued to arrive. As a result the number in Hong Kong began to rise and their prospects of resettlement grew worse.
HKK
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243/5
MO MY REGISTRY
1 5MAR R35
William Waldegrave Esq MP House of Commons
LONDON
SW1A OAA
он
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