TNAG-0496-FCO40-561-Deportation-of-foreign-nationals-from-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 52

PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL

(ii)

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1

DTE Roberts Esq CBE QC

Acting Governor

HONG LONG

Telephone 01-

Your reference

Our reference

Date

26 July 1974

Dear Denys

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

1.

I enclose herewith an advance copy of the record of the Governor's talk with Lord Goronwy-Roberts yesterday. I would be grateful if this could be seen by you and Alan Donald only for the time being. I think we are now on an even keel about the South Vietnamese. But the Governor has subsequently telephoned me to say that his personal impression about possible difficulties arising from the return of illegal immigrants to China, was one of some concern. He will be able to discuss all this with you when he gets back on the 10th; but meanwhile he has asked me to say that he thought it would be wise not to press the Chinese for the time being. If they came back to Alan Donald with firm proposals, that would of course be a different matter. But he hoped you would find it possible not to take any initiatives from your side before he gets back to Hong Kong.

2.

I believe he is right to be cautious. I think in fact there will be no difficulty. But if arrangements were made to return illegal immigrants to China and you then ran into problems from here about whether the returnees had been properly screened to ensure that they were not genuine refugees, this could be very damaging.

Yours ever, Andrew

A C Stuart

Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Dept.