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Economic Relations (Dinh Phu Dinh) put it, policies for building socialism in Vietnam must be adapted to the new international environment: Vietnam must concentrate on expanding relations with other non-socialist countries.
8.
My guess is that the Vietnamese can be persuaded to abandon their insistence on voluntary repatriation only. This was the implication of the repeated urgings of those I talked to that we should go on discussing the matter and build on the points of agreement registered in the first round. But there will be a price. This will include a say of some kind over the numbers and identity of returnees and resettlement assistance. The former point is understandable: if international respectability is indeed what the Vietnamese are after, they will not want to attract international odium for forcing people to return but to place the onus for any unpleasantness squarely on the repatriating country. I fear that this is going to be a source of continuing difficulty for the Hong Kong and British Goverments in the future. Since the Vietnamese need for international respectability is the only leverage which we have over them in this negotiation, we are badly placed to urge them to act in ways which might lead the international community to accuse them of human rights abuses. By the same token we have to recognise that at any time the Vietnamese Government could torpedo the Hong Kong Government's new screening out policy by announcing that all returnees will be severely punished, thus ipso facto making it impossible for the Hong Kong Government to send them back. So success in this negotiation will only be achieved by treating the Vietnamese Government correctly in diplomatic terms and through a process of give and take, in recognition of the fact that they hold some aces. It will not be achieved by diktat, whatever the objective merits of
our case.
9.
The attitude of the Chinese Chargé d'Affaires was interesting. He began by referring to the exodus of boat people as Vietnam's "human pollution of the region". With China's contribution to the problem (eg aid to coast hoppers) in mind, I warned Mr Chen Zenglin that it would not be in China's interests to inherit a Vietnamese boat people problem in Hong Kong when the territory reverted to China in 1997. Mr Chen said menacingly, with a hollow laugh, that once China takes over "there will be no Vietnamese boat people problem", clearly implying that they would all be thrown out immediately. Later in our conversation Mr Chen reverted to the point in less combative manner, remarking that China wanted to help us to find a solution to Hong Kong's problem. But he remained sceptical of Vietnam's real intentions in agreeing to hold talks, suggesting that they
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CONFIDENTIAL