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scheme would make substantial inroads into the problem of illegal immigration. At the moment some illegal immigrants (Ji seems to believe most of the them) come to Hong Kong to work on the building sites, knowing that even if they are caught and repatriated after a few weeks it will still be financially worth their while.
We do not like this proposal.
Interestingly, although
it is presumably not Ji's own idea, and he must have authority at least from the upper echelons of NCNA, the Communist "establishment" does not seem to be totally behind the idea either. Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao have both carried articles criticizing the importation of labour as an answer to the present problem. The Communist unions are also dead against on the grounds that such a move would depress wages and benefit capitalists at the expense of the workers.
The Government view is that such a scheme would:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(a)
undermine our policy of encouraging higher productivity (the enlightened manufacturers know that the real answer is to upgrade their machinery, pay better wages and take other steps to improve the productivity of the Hong Kong worker (which is currently much lower than that of his Japanese
counterpart);
unite left wing and right wing unions. and other interests against us, claiming, with justification, that we were siding with the employers against the interests of the ordinary people;
have very little effect indeed on illegal immigration since many of those wanting to come to Hong Kong might not be lucky enough to be selected under the Chinese scheme;
give the American protectionists another weapon against us;
(e)
cause immigration and other administrative problems;
(f)
perhaps, in the long term, encourage Guangdong to believe that their surplus workers should, if at all possible, be sent to work in Hong Kong.
The question was raised briefly under Any Other Business in ExCo on 4 August and a paper was commissioned. We expect the paper to be put to ExCo for decision within about a month. That paper will of course look at the question of importation of labour in general, not simply the NCNA scheme.
CONFIDENTIAL