CONFIDENTIAL
enthusiastic; the UN was now a more appropriate body.
5. Chiba had little to offer in response. Japan was giving Vietnam only a very little amount of emergency humanitarian
Her influence aid, and some support in the cultural sphere.
was therefore limited. There appeared to be a deliberate Vietnamese tactic to hold Japan at arm's length and exclude her from the "inner circle". On Cambodia, no firm decisions had been taken in Tokyo, but he thought the UN would now be regarded as a more useful instrument in the search for a settlement. He said the Japanese did not consider the Vietnamese proposal for a re-run of the 1954 ICC to be serious.
6.
Chiba asked for Lord Glenarthur's impressions of Soviet policy towards Vietnam. Lord Glenarthur said he had had little chance to observe this first hand. Many of the Vietnamese attitudes he had encountered were more redolent of old thinking than of new. Chiba seized on this as an echo of the recent Japanese talks with Rogachev, which had illustrated a strange mixture of old and new thinking. For example, although the Soviet Union now accepted the role of NATO, they had strongly attacked the "aggressive" alliance between Japan and the US. And this despite their clear wish to recruit Japan's help in developing Eastern Siberia. It seemed that the Soviet Union had not made up its mind on how to tackle Asia.
7. Lord Glenarthur asked about the Japanese attitude on boat people. Chiba said that there was a limit of 5,000 resettlement places in Japan; but few refugees were interested in taking these up. The main Japanese effort was therefore in financial help for UNHCR. Chiba was not briefed on the Japanese attitude to the ICIR in Geneva in June. instructed Fujisaki to respond on this, including with details of who would lead the Japanese delegation. I suggested that Fujisaki contact Mr Colvin on this.
HONG KONG/NATIONALITY
8.
He
Chiba picked up on recent public comment about nationality issues affecting Hong Kong. Lord Glenarthur briefed him in
standard terms.
Robert Court:
Robert Court
PS/Lord Glenarthur
25 April 1989
CONFIDENTIAL
Page 120Page 121