Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
HKK 243/9
DOGAFC
HICK 243 CONFIDENTIAL
RECEIVED IN VEGI.
cvo2
B Hitch Esq MG CVO2 7 AUG 198.
TOKYO
Dear Hitel!
DEST
INDES
PA
5 August 1986
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN HONG KONG: RESETTLEMENT IN JAPAN
Summary
1.
on
On 30 July Seki called on me to deliver the Japanese response to my demarche of 8 July exhorting the Japanese to improve their
on performance
resettlement Vietnamese Refugees from Hong Kong. He said that Japan was prepared to send further mission to Hong Kong in
and that
would Japan
try to flexibility in the
its interpretation of selecting refugees for resettlement in Japan.
1986,
Detail
a
introduce
criteria
more
for
2.
Seki set out what the Japanese Government factors inhibiting it from resettling refugees:
sees
as
(a) land scarcity in Japan;
(b) Japan's ethnic homogeneity
lead to racial tensions if large
large numbers were admitted. The Japanese Government was doing its best
this to educate people but would take time, like the Japan's domestic markets.);
(which
could
opening
of
(c) its
lack
of
in
role historical any resettling refugees (Seki said that Japan's only recent experience had been with (White) Russians earlier
what he called
earlier this century, and their unhappy experience
with Koreans and Chinese);
(d) sooner or later, as liberalisation of trade
proceeded,
Japan
would
have
to face
unemployment.
This
make would
it
even
harder to accept refugees;
CONFIDENTIAL
725