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urther effort to take more refugees from Hong Kong, the US and other resettlement countries would also take a higher proportion.
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Ambassador Douglas replied that "other resettlement countries" in effect meant "all three", ie United States, Australia, Canada. A British initiative to take 450 or 550 more refugees should not be belittled: it was a positive and "absolutely necessary" move, not so much in its numbers as in its demonstration of a change in a British policy of several years' standing. Washington, Ottawa and Canberra would react well to this. He felt, however, that Hong Kong's problem must be placed in a regional context, as part of a general western need to reduce camp populations throughout the area. In Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong, the US was concerned that an increase in the rate of resettling "residual" refugees now would provoke a flow of new arrivals. With this in mind, the US Government were considering as a policy option a new deterrent that might be applied throughout the region; that from a certain date no new arrivals would be processed for resettlement. They would be housed in a remote location (a Pacific island, eg Yap, Saipan, Palawan or Papua New Guinea) under UNHCR care, where they would be well looked after, fed and educated (in Vietnamese) pending repatriation to Vietnam. In Douglas's view, without such a regional policy, the current refugee populations could not be effectively reduced. This was particularly true of Hong Kong, where a higher proportion (perhaps half) were "non-processable" under the current US criteria. In the US, as elsewhere, refugee immigration was a very emotive issue. The US Government could not alter its processing guidelines purely in order to help Hong Kong; neither would the UK's acceptance of a further 500 persuade the US to change their guidelines. Such a change could only be made once a line had been held: even if the flow was contained now, it would take three years to absorb all the "residuals" in the region.
Mr Luce said that Ambassador Douglas's observations raised two separate issues: the problem posed by those who had already left Vietnam, ie the unresettled residue including those in Hong Kong, and the question of future policy including deterrence. As to the first problem, closed centres were now, after 2 years, coming under increasing criticism in the UK, and HMG had to act with urgency. Hong Kong had itself absorbed 14000 displaced Indo-Chinese, as well as several hundred thousand recent immigrants from China, and we could not ask Hong Kong to do more. The UK could not relieve Hong Kong's problem alone.
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Ambassador Douglas mentioned that he had met the Governor of Hong Kong in Washington, and that he might agree to visit Hong Kong. He felt that in practical terms Hong Kong would need to absorb some of the residuals itself - it could not expect all to go elsewhere. Mr Luce said that this could only be a very small number and Ambassador Douglas said he was thinking only of a few hundred. He mentioned that he would shortly be putting a paper on refugee questions to the President. He stressed the importance of HMG and the US Government staying in close touch in their thinking on possible regional solutions. He also felt that care should be taken not to publicise any new UK resettlement effort unduly: this, combined with current unfavourable developments on the Vietnamese economic and internal security fronts, would encourage more to leave. Mr Hartland-Swann agreed; our Ambassador in Hanoi had stressed that the poor state of the
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