SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret
Secret
DSR 11C (Revised 5/87)
illustrating the areas of the draft Basic Law where
substantial improvements have already been made).
Confidential
Restricted
Unclassified
PRIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
44.
A
The British Government will consider carefully, in
the light of reactions in Hong Kong in the course of the
second round of public consultation, what further
views should be conveyed to the Chinese authorities.
section which will be studied particularly closely and
which has already aroused controversy in Hong Kong is
that on the future constitutional structure.
This is an
area of particular importance for confidence in Hong
Kong.
X: Vietnamese Boat People
45.
In accordance with the outcome of the United
Nations Conference on Indo-Chinese refugees held in
Geneva in 1979, Hong Kong and some countries in the
region have provided temporary shelter to all boat people
arriving from Vietnam, on the understanding that they
would eventually be resettled by the international
community. Since 1975 some 133,000 boat people have
arrived in Hong Kong from Vietnam, of whom over 100,000
have been resettled abroad. In the years immediately
after the Geneva Conference, the number of boat people
remaining in Hong Kong steadily diminished to a low of
about 7,600 people in May 1987. In the past 2 years,
however, the trend has reversed and the arrangements
agreed at the Conference have come under increasing
strain. In the summer of 1987 a new influx began, while