XN000022-1997-01-23 — Page 19

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Governor: Yes, Britain has been looking at this issue and exploring it at every opportunity and at every level with representatives of the Vietnamese Government. It has been raised by the Prime Minister, by the Foreign Secretary and by the Minister of State, to take three examples. I think there are two problems, and they have to be set against the considerable success we have had over the last year in reducing the number of migrants in the camps. Last year, I think I am right in saying we sent home over 15,000 migrants which should have put us well on course for completing the task before 30 June.

The problem we have is the number of Vietnamese in the camps who still are not cleared for repatriation to Vietnam and the number of that group who are ethnically-Chinese and whom the Vietnamese authorities have been resisting taking back for reasons which we have discussed in this chamber before. Principally, the fact that the Vietnamese authorities clearly see them as a precedent for the 260,000 or so ethnically-Chinese Vietnamese migrants who are in China at the moment. I hope that the Vietnamese authorities will speed-up the clearance of migrants and will, in particular, address this question more positively of the ethnic-Chinese migrants.

And it would be more helpful for, I think, the Chinese authorities to help on that issue rather than just wagging their fingers at the British authorities from time to time and saying we are not dealing with the problem rapidly enough. We have dealt with the problem extremely rapidly over the last year and I think that should, with assistance, help us to reach a complete solution.

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On the question of the ethnic minorities. First of all, so far as legislation is concerned. I don't want to get the matter out of proportion I would hope that legislation could be passed before 30 June. The point I was trying to make was that if that did not prove possible, I was sure that the ethnic minorities would recognise that the commitment to legislate, even if the legislation came a bit later, would pretty well satisfy their demands. And I can't imagine that the Hong Kong Immigration Department would find any difficulty in being helpful. After all, these are a group who can't acquire Chinese nationality because of the ethnic provisions of Chinese Nationality law. So it would be a bit unreasonable not to give them at least some assistance in those circumstances.

The honourable lady's first question?

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