CONFIDENTIAL
the Vietnamese to take back the boat people against acceptable
guarantees about the treatment they would receive on return. If the
new policy had inadequate deterrent effect, new arrivals could keep
on coming. Hong Kong could be left with a steadily increasing
population of detainees with no hope of resettlement, no prospect of repatriation and no incentive to co-operative with their gaolers.
In presenting a policy on those lines internationally, we would face
the dilemma of needing, on the one hand, to demonstrate that it
respected humanitarian values and did not discriminate against
genuine refugees; whilst, on the other hand, needing to send a
sufficiently firm signal to Vietnam so as to deter the flow of boat
people.
9.
The Hong Kong Government are starkly aware of these risks and
difficulties. But they are also convinced that present policies are no longer tenable. Neither we nor they can identify any more
satisfactory alternative approach: the obvious theoretical
alternative would be to prevent boat people from landing, leaving
them to sail on or drown. It would seem right that the Hong Kong
Government should be permitted to pursue their exploration of all
the implications of ceasing to grant first asylum, on the clear
understanding that:
(i)
(ii)
we see screening on arrival as a necessary component of this approach;
Ministers would wish to be consulted further, no doubt
collectively, before any change of policy was implemented.
CONFIDENTIAL
Colten
CO Hum