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DSR 11C (Revised 5/87)
She
Basic Law provides for 15 directly elected seats.
may press for an early announcement of our intentions in
the hope that this might influence the content of the
Basic Law.
:
We suggest that the Prime Minister listens to
what Dame Lydia has to say but makes no commitments. She
might ask Dame Lydia whether an early announcement would
have the intended result might it not have the opposite
effect on the Chinese by making it impossible for them to
appear to be responding to British pressure? Opinion in
Hong Kong is evolving, and although there appears to be a
general view in favour of a faster rate of
democratisation, no clear view has yet emerged. OD (K)
will be consulted about this in due course.
On Vietnamese boat people, Dame Lydia is likely to ask
when we will be ready to start mandatory repatriation.
The Prime Minister might stress that we are acutely aware
of the burden imposed on Hong Kong by Vietnamese boat
people: there are now over 55,000 in the territory. She
could reassure Dame Lydia that our aim is to achieve the
return to Vietnam of all those screened out as
non-refugees.
It is clear that voluntary repatriation
alone cannot provide a comprehensive solution to the
problem. The only alternative is non-voluntary
repatriation and we are making a considerable effort to
convince the international community of the logic of
this.