CONFIDENTIAL
family reunion cases,
further
limited
numbers of
Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong". Our reply to SCORRI
indicated that such a decision would be taken "in the
light of the willingness
shown by other resettlement
D
I consider that
that the
countries to respond to Hong Kong's needs and of all the
other circumstances at the time"
responses of other countries to date and the continuing
burden of the camp population upon Hong Kong's resources
warrant our initiating a further and continuing offtake
from Hong Kong under this commitment as soon as our
current "family reunion" offtake
offtake from Hong Kong ceases.
While I I appreciate that such a decision will not be an
easy one to take, I believe that it is imperative in the
light of our continuing political and moral
responsibility for Hong Kong. I also believe that it
could be implemented reasonably
reasonably simply given that the
voluntary agencies have already identified several
hundred extra Hong Kong cases who would be eligible under
our existing *relaxed
family reunion criteria.
8.
I should here reassure you that, besides seeking to
continue with overseas resettlement, we are also exploring
other solutions however remote their prospects of early
success
-
to this highly intractable problem. It is
increasingly clear that two of the main resettlement
countries
—
the USA and Australia
-
are trying to justify
their growing reluctance to take more refugees from Hong
Kong on the grounds many of those now arriving from
Vietnam are economic migrants rather than "true"
CONFIDENTIAL