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Question: Governor --
Governor: Yes, let's go on to something serious.
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Question: will
you be putting up any proposals to Mrs Ogata on how to resolve the problem of the Boat People whose identities have not been established yet?
Governor: We are very pleased indeed that Mrs Ogata is coming to Hong Kong. We have been working very closely with the UNHCR over the years, as you know, to deal with this very difficult problem, and with their assistance Hong Kong has now coped with over 200,000 Vietnamese migrants, some of them refugees, some of them not. We are now in a situation where the number of migrants is less than 5,000. We have returned about 15,000 since the beginning of last year perhaps rather more - and there are also about 1,300 refugees who remain a problem which the UNHCR and all of us are concerned about.
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Clearly, we want to ensure that we continue the rate of progress in returning migrants under the Orderly Repatriation Programme that we managed last year. The problem, as you probably know, is clearance of names at the moment with the Vietnamese authorities. It is an issue which has been taken up with the Vietnamese at the highest level by the British Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Minister of State, and we will be discussing with the UNHCR what more we can do.
The particular problem that we face is a reluctance on the part of the Vietnamese to clear rapidly those that they say are ethnically Chinese. It is clearly not a matter of complete principle because about 6,000 ethnically Chinese Vietnamese migrants have returned to Vietnam, so I hope we will be able to persuade, with the help of Mrs Ogata and her officials, the Vietnamese to be more helpful.
I have to say that if their worry is that accepting back these people will be a precedent for the 260,000 or so ethnic Chinese Vietnamese who are in China since the 1978 war, then it would help if the Chinese authorities themselves could make it clear to the Vietnamese Government that they would not regard taking back ethnic Chinese Vietnamese from Hong Kong as a precedent for the 260,000 or so who are in China. I think rather than just criticise the excellent efforts made by the Hong Kong Government to return the migrants, it would be helpful if the Chinese authorities could actually give us some assistance by making that point absolutely clear to the Vietnamese Government.
That was a serious question.