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We have my loot
Ms. PA.
FOR OUR F
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15B Piccadilly Mansion,"
6 Po Shan Road,
Hong Kong.
Telephone: 5-407215
AND THEN REIM
FAX NO: 5-59 7005
PRIVATE OF
22nd November 1988
мкогиз
Sir Geoffrey Howe Q.C., P.C.,
The House of Commons,
Westminster,
London S.W.1.
Dear Sir Geoffrey,
@Ack
2 HKD
184
For an appropriat repy Haps
PS/Ford/lenarth- Possen DAP
Vietnam Refugees in Hong Kong
APS 29
It is of some concern that members of the Legislative Council in Hong Kong are putting public pressure on Her Majesty's Government to take more Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong and resettle them in the United Kingdom. I, as a long term resident of Hong Kong and a British citizen, will be thoroughly disappointed if Hei Majesty's Government capitulates to this crude pressure.
(a) Britain has no responsibility for the plight of the Vietnamese. The British Government's role in Vietnam has been limited. There are arguably only two incidents in which the British Government has had a role in the recent past but their relevance to the current situation is tenuous at best. (i) After the Allies agreed to the partition of Vietnam at the meeting held in Potsdam in July 1945, the British took responsibility for South Vietnam primarily to disaim the Japanese. General Gracey with about 1800 troops tried to maintain order. However this proved impractical and thus in September 1945 with the concurrence of the Americans the British handed over responsibility to the French. General de Gaulle was then determined to retain colonial control over the whole of Vietnam and this led to First Indochina War terminating in July 1954. Britain has had no direct presence in Vietnam since September 1945. (ii) In April 1954 one month before the critical fall of Dien Bien Phu Eisenhower asked Churchill for his support to sending air assistance to the beleagured French garrison. This request for Allied support for any involvement in Vietnam had been imposed on Eisenhower by Congress. Churchill and Eden rejected the request as totally unsustainable in the domestic political climate at that time. The fall of Dien Bien Phu was critical in that the negotiating position of the French and the Americans with the Viet Minh was considerably weekened at the Geneva convention held literally one day after the fall. If Britain had supported the American call for assistance, Dien Bien Phu would certainly not have fallen before the convention and thus the negotiating position of the Allies would have been considerably stronger, although, with the benefit of hindsight, the war would probably have been lost
anyway.
(b) The Hong Kong Government rightly treats illegal immigrants from China, also "economic refugees", by returning them to their base country.
(c) The British Government does not give automatic rights of abode in Britain to Hong Kong citizens, citizens who are required to bear allegiance to Her Majesty, many of whom have served in a Colonial