HKD 243/12
- 2 AUG 1988
IN
FOREIGN SECRETARY
HOME
SECRETARY
VIETNAMESE BOAT PEOPLE IN HONG KONG
Thank you for your minute of 18
192
нко
My lord flenautter
M. Melaren
SEAD
ли
following our meeting last
month. We spoke about this yesterday.
2.
I am disappointed that it has not been possible to answer more certainly the two points I registered last month. I understand your hopes for the future, but with 4,000 arrivals in the first month of the new system in Hong Kong there is clearly no guarantee that the flow into the colony has stopped or can be controlled. I agree that we can be reasonably sure that other countries will do little without a lead from us, but there is as yet no firm commitment from anyone else to any proportionate new quotas. I cannot help feeling that any action on our part will be something of a shot in the dark.
3.
Because of the scale of the problem and because the numbers which you propose should be manageable within our resettlement capabilities. I am prepared in principle to go along with your proposal. I will have to look closely at the availability of additional funding for the refugee agencies - about £300,000 per annum for which we have no provision.
If we are to accept the 1,000 refugees which you propose over two and a half rather than three and a half year the cost will, of course, be greater.
-
4.
Officials here will be happy to assist in the preparation of a minute which you might send to the Prime Minister and colleagues.
N 118
Mr Foorman Miss Sueter
زیرا
+ PA
Let's dinamo
W%
Joylee Hand.
29 July 1988