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2 O AUG 1990
FICE:.
48
CALL BY MR ERIC HO ON MR BURNS, 8 AUGUST
INDS
PA
1.
Mr Eric Ho paid a courtesy call on Mr Burns on 8 August.
He is a retired Hong Kong senior civil servant, retiring in
1987 as Secretary for Trade and Industry. He is now
Chairman of the Public Service Commission.
2.
Mr Ho was rather pessimistic about Hong Kong's future and his own personal view was that people would continue to
emigrate. He would, however, "hope for the best" and there
was time for major change in China.
3.
He brought up Vietnamese boat people and how Chinese officials were still re-provisioning the coast hoppers.
Mr Burns said we would continue to press the central Chinese
Government on this. Mr Ho's response was that "the mountain is high and the Emperor is a long way off".
4.
Mr Ho finally raised the case of the Hong Kong Eurasians in his capacity as Chairman of the Welfare League, an
organisation formed to protect the interests of the Eurasian community. He thought it important that the Eurasians had
an escape route. He was not happy with the assurances in Mr Maude's letter of 15 July. In particular he objected to the
suggestion that HMG would only look again at their concerns
if they failed to obtain citizenship elsewhere. The fact
was that the Eurasians would be regarded by Peking as
Chinese nationals as they had always been. Whatever their status in Chinese eyes the Eurasians did not bear any allegiance to China. Mr Burns agreed with Mr Ho that it might be helpful if he would provide a more detailed and
accurate estimate of the numbers of Eurasians affected. At one point in the conversation he mentioned a figure of 1,000 but then admitted that the degree of difficulty varied with
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