27:17 OCT '91 15:57
HKGO LONDON
071 493 1964
P.02
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the things in Hong Kong are changing as they look at and deal with Hong
Kong issues, I hope they have the right sort of backgrounds in their minds, so those are the main things I have been doing except for seeing all of
you.
Let me pick up any questions.
Question inaudible.
A. Well let me say that what we are trying to do. There has been a significant shift in Vietnamese position. It looks as though they are now prepared
to look at ways of returning to Vietnam people who are not found to be political refugees, in other words Vietnam is now prepared to take back to its own
ры
country people who have left as illegal migrants and have tried to get
into another place as illegal immigrants.
So in general, it looks as
though they are now prepared to do that and we have made good progress already in trying to work out the practical arrangements for doing it but there
is still more work to be done, I don't know precisely when all these arrangements are going to be put into place, but there are different bits you see, we
have for instance, the problem of people who volunteer to go back to Vietnam and once they have got back to their homes they have come back again to Hong Kong. They seem quite frankly to be abusing the system, coming, volunteering, picking up economic assistance and returning to Hong Kong so that's one
bit of it. Then there is the bigger question of how do you deal with all those other people, many thousands, who come to Hong Kong and found not to be political requgees, how do you make arrangements for returning them?