CONFIDENTIAL
Reference
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Mr R L Baxter
Mr P L O'Keeffe
MEX
REF.
HKI OD
HONG KONG
VIETNAM REFUGEES
Mr Pearson has asked me to reply to the minute which you sent him on 15 April.
2. As you will know, Mrs Hart has announced an undertaking to provide £lm from the Aid Programme for relief for Vietnam, and of this sum, as things stand at present, only £750,000 has been specifically committed. If therefore (a) the situation in Hong Kong develops as you suggest, (b) the Hong Kong authorities were to request assistance in dealing with a flood of refugees, and (c) you were minded to submit a case for meeting it through the usual channels, there could be no objection from the finance side of the house. I must however exclude any thought that we should volunteer an offer to the Hong Kong Government.
3. But this is not to indicate that any such submission is likely to get a favourable reception. As I do not have to tell you, Hong Kong is among the very richest of the "developing" territories and not normally regarded as a suitable recipient of aid funds. While I take the point that the cost of a relief operation would put some strain on the Colony's financial resources, the financial resources of the United Kingdom are at present under strain themselves and I think that it would be argued that this was a contribution to the refugee problem which the Colony could reasonably be expected to undertake itself.
CRA Rae 21 April 1975
Ми люби
het i vest awhile
PM. 257 +
Typical. But as the Refugees problem has not (so far)
I
me shall egyest have
presented telf in Hong Kong, I think in should let sleging days be- If they do them up in large numbers, to take thes us at Mures tercal level.
Mhath
CONFIDENTIAL
24/4
CODE 18-77
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