CONFIDENTIAL
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Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
HUD 341
Telephone 01- 270-26501. R 1988
J F Doble Esq OBE
British Consulate General EDMONTON
Your reference
Our reference
ARZABD
Date 7 March 1988
Dear Doble,
CANADA/HONG KONG
1.
I have been intending for some time to write to thank you for the line you took with the Albertan Minister for Immigration on the subject of confidence in Hong Kong (your letter of 4 January to Nigel Wenban Smith refers). We think the points you made were exactly right: in their enthusiasm to attract some of the brightest and wealthiest of Hong Kong's (traditionally mobile) population, immigration authorities of countries like Canada run the risk of undermining the confidence on which Hong Kong's success is based, and which benefits the international community as a whole (as well as the majority of Hong Kong people).
2.
Emigration is of course a sensitive issue in Hong Kong, not least because critics of the Hong Kong Government are (rather unfairly) using the statistics as a yardstick against which to measure the reaction of the middle class to the Government's policies, such as the pace of political reform. A few people are claiming that emigration is arguably already leading to shortages of skilled personnel, as well as creating a sense of unease amongst those who remain behind. But the general consensus (with which we agree) is that the exodus is well within containable limits, at least for the present. also the point that many of those who leave eventually return, having taken out their "insurance policy" of a foreign nationality: the existence of this safety valve arguably contributes to confidence and stability in the long run. We would be interested in any information you can provide on "re-immigration" trends from your perspective.
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3. On the subject of confidence etc, you may find it helpful to have a copy of the text of an article by the Governor of Hong Kong which was published last autumn in the Harvard International
CONFIDENTIAL