1989-06-12
19:36 COI RADIO TECH SERVICES.
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P.05
TRANSCRIPT C: SELECT COMMITTER ON HONG KONG
12 JUNE 1989
~4~
MR.
TEMPLE-MORRIS:
Can I ask you straight how you see this, the moral
obligation argument and insofar as you think there is a
moral obligation, to whom does it apply?
SIR DAVID VILSON;
When I appeared before the Committee last time,
said that I had a good deal of sympathy for views put
forward in Hong Kong and also I pointed out to the
Committee how much bitterness this issue raised in Hong
Kong and I think you got some flavour of that when you
were in Hong Kong yourselves.
All those points are
doubly emphasised now in light of what has happened
recently in Peking ·
―
the
I have no doubt in my own mind that if it was
possible for Britain to give a right of entry into Britain
for all those people in Hong Kong who hold British
passports of various sorts, that that first of all would
have the most immense beneficial effect on Hong Kong
most immense effect. Secondly, that it would not lead to
the arrival in Britain of anything like those figures of
3.2 million overall who potentially have a right to those
passports or 1.2 or 1.2-plus million who actually hold
them at the moment; that the number of people who
actually would move would be much smaller than that.