COZADB
CONFIDENTIAL
Mr McLaren
Minak
Private Secretary
•/vi
S
Secretary Staty
223
FROM:
DATE:
CC:
CO Hum
Hong Kong Deadme 1988
2 June 1988
PS/Lord Glenarthur
Mr Gillmore
1252
2
Mr Fifoot, Legal Advisers
8
Mr Williams, UND 5
Mr Colvin, SEAD
-3/8
HKD 243/8
VIETNAMESE BOAT PEOPLE IN HONG KONG
A
1.
The next step is for the Secretary of State to minute the Prime Minister and colleagues, to seek formal agreement to the policy change proposed by the Hong Kong Government.. I submit a draft.
Legal Advisers, SEAD and UND concur.
2.
This has to take into account a fresh complication which has
emerged in the course of today. UKMIS Geneva telno 304 contains the
text of a response from UNHCR to the informal and confidential
approach which we made last week to explain the outline of the
proposed new policy. The UNHCR note amounts to a request that the
Hong Kong Government should hold off from unilateral action,
pending the outcome of contacts which are under way between UNHCR on
the one hand and ASEAN and Vietnamese Governments on the other. A
UNHCR official has made it clear that they are not expecting any
response from the Vietnamese before September. And there is of
course no certainty that the Vietnamese will be any more
forthcoming even then.
3.
It is simply not feasible for the Hong Kong Government to delay action in this way. The Secretary of State has seen the magnitude
of the problem at first hand. 5,000 Vietnamese boat people arrived
in Hong Kong in the first 5 months of this year, at a time when
weather conditions are not even particularly favourable for the
journey. The traditional period for arrivals in Hong Kong is only
just beginning. If the implementation of the new policy were
postponed until the autumn Hong Kong could quite easily find a further 10,000 refugees on its hands. It is regrettable (if not
CONFIDENTIAL