seen.
минажий +PA
Mr Paul
Hong Kong Department
CONFIDENTIAL
R
22. pl.cc Alex Grount;)
(12
Finance Department
+ Carice of FCO tolno 7897 HK
and HK telno 1116
FROM:
J C MACHIN
5 April 1989
DATE:
Mko 243190
Mr Manning
Mr McLaren
а
VIETNAMESE BOAT PEOPLE IN HONG KONG
We discussed earlier this week the recent exchange of telegrams with Hong Kong about the Governor's proposal that HMG should provide some £6 million in order to finance, on a 50:50 basis with the Hong Kong Government, the establishment of a new detention centre in the Colony to cope with the expected large influx this summer of Vietnamese Boat People.
2.
In confirmation of what I told you then, our firm position is that we could not advise Mr Patten and the Secretary of State that it would be appropriate to use aid funds for this purpose. The main arguments are:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
It would be extremely difficult to defend publically using aid to finance the establishment of a detention centre for refugees given the purposes for which aid funds are voted. Such a proposition is quite different from that of providing humanitarian assistance through UNHCR for Vietnamese refugees which we have already done this year to the tune of £2 million. Providing aid funds for a detention centre would undoubtedly attract very considerable adverse Parliamentary and public comment and open up to critical scrutiny such a use of development aid. On political grounds Ministers would surely want to avoid this kind of hornet's nest;
Providing aid funds direct to Hong Kong whose income per head is not much below that of the United Kingdom would also be difficult to defend;
There also seems to be a major question mark anyway over whether the detention centre could be ready by the summer. That alone seems to put the proposition in considerable doubt;
3. These major obstacles aside, we do not have refugee relief funds this financial year which could come anywhere near the suggested contribution of £6 million. Moreover, ODA's Finance Division advise that even at this early stage in the current financial year it is already clear that the financial position will be extremely tight. There are already substantial earmarkings for disaster and refugee assistance and other substantial claims on the Contingency Reserve for 1989/90. The remainder of the Contingency Reserve will need to be husbanded carefully for true contingencies which are
CONFIDENTIAL
/inescapable