Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
From The Minister of State
Richard Luce MP
FA
243/39311
2 July 1985
KJSH
77
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R, ALL HKD KJ512 5/7
Chancenes Manila
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71
In my letter of 24 June I said I would let
you have a full reply about the proposal to move some Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong to the Philippines which you put to me in your letter of 14 June.
I
We have taken some soundings about this interesting idea in Tokyo and Manila. Unfortunately, the responses we obtained were not encouraging. understand that the Philippines Government has a well established policy of not accepting any Vietnamese refugees for resettlement. This is because the Filipinos believe that they are already playing their full part, both as a country of first asylum and through the provision of transit facilities at Bataan for refugees who have a firm offer of resettlement elsewhere. Moreover, we have been told, in confidence, that there has been some pressure from the government to reduce the number of refugees currently in the Philippines on a first asylum basis. It is possible that offers of finance from Japanese businessmen could produce a more positive response, but our contacts in both Tokyo and Manila are not optimistic.
We remain keenly concerned to lessen Hong Kong's burden of Vietnamese refugees and are interested in any proposals likely to have this effect. I fear that the ideas outlined in your letter may not come to fruition, but we shall keep them in mind as we pursue this very difficult problem.
Dränk
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Sir Philip Goodhart MP
House of Commons
LONDON
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Rick