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4.
The White Paper also announced that, depending on the
willingness shown by other resettlement countries to
respond to
to Hong Kong's needs and on all the circumstances
at the time, HMG would be prepared to consider accepting
further limited numbers from Hong Kong. We are considering
with the Home Office whether HMG may accept such a "further
limited number". It is unlikely that the issue will be
resolved before ExCom. The Hong Kong Government indicated
that it would also be prepared to absorb limited numbers from the camps, if there was а positive international
response to our diplomatic campaign. There was such a
and Hong Kong is response,
now absorbing up to 250 refugees, drawn from the longest- staying ethnic Chinese.
more
Alternatives to Resettlement
5.
We
the
in
are concerned about the reluctance of some of the
main resettlement countries to accept as refugees from Hong Kong camps those whom they consider to have left Vietnam
for economic rather than
than political reasons; and about the
implications for Hong Kong of
Hong Kong of a resultant decline in rate of resettlement whilst the flow of new arrivals
Hong Kong from Vietnam is continuing. In order to explore what alternatives to resettlement in the West might exist,
we have approached members of the "Inter-governmental Committee" (IGC) (or "Honolulu Group"). This comprises the main resettlement countries (the US, Australia and Canada), Japan and the UNHCR, and meets periodically in Geneva for informal discussions on refugee and resettlement matters.
6.
the
An
We understand that recently the Group have addressed"
same concerns
Australian ourselves.
paper
discussed at the last meeting of the Group (in June) drew
attention to:
as
(a) the continuing outflow from Vietnam;
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