20 January 1993
G W Hewitt Esq SEAD FCO
HKD 0264
**CEIVED
34
28 JAN 1993
RESTRICTED
M257: Mis fanes Jays 29/1 See Pars 3-5.
to Sumecre
one
very over the speaking meeting to the
Gavin
British Embassy
Rome
6
pa lut support
ра
00187 Roma
ttine Via XX Settembre 80a MB27/11
Telephone: 482 5441, 482 5551 Telex: 626119 (a/b 626119 BREMB I) Facsimile: 487 3324
DESK O
INDEX
VIETNAMESE MIGRANTS:
1.
RETURNS FROM HONG KONG
Action here on FCO telno 4 to Bangkok would normally have been taken by your predecessor, David Colvin, on whose heart this subject remains deeply engraved. But he kindly stood aside to give me an opportunity to meet Mario Pini, Head of the MFA Far Eastern Department, before I leave here on my way to succeed Stephen Bradley as Deputy Political Adviser in Hong Kong in May.
2.
I handed over a table of key statistics, which I illustrated using the points in TUR. Pini was suitably impressed, once I had convinced him that there really had been only 12 arrivals in 1992. He agreed that the orderly repatriation programme had been critical, and made clear that this had Italy's full support. His only comment, which I imagine will come as no surprise, was that had the Americans been more helpful sooner, the flow of migrants into Hong Kong could have been reversed at an earlier stage.
Amen to Hut I
3. Pini, a China specialist also offered some frank personal musings on Italian foreign policy, with specific reference to China and Hong Kong. I record these here for what they are worth. His starting point was the corruption which has, for decades, permeated Italian politics and officialdom, and which is now being exposed eg by the magistrates investigating public works contracts in Milan. Pini observed that the public focus so far had largely been on corruption at home. In foreign policy the only question marks raised so far had been over the corrupt use of aid funds.
In a
4.
But, Pini continued, the problem went wider. whole range of countries, Italian companies had in effect been bribing the leading political parties to adopt policies favourable to them. This was one reason why, in cases such as China and Iran, Italy had sometimes been reluctant to show solidarity with EC partners over human rights and terrorism. Now that the rottenness was being exposed, Pini predicted that Italian foreign policy would become more "ethical". The practical consequence, and his reason for mentioning all this to me, was China/Hong Kong.
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