013/048/1
IN
17 MAR 1776
28
CONFIDENTIAL
Mr. Larmour
I have read with much interest the Planning Staff paper PC 76/11 on Hong Kong. I shall not be at the Planning Staff meeting tomorrow (it coincides unfortunately with my weekly meeting of the JIC) and I thought I would put the following thought to you. I am only copying it on a limited scale since it may well not be valid.
2. I refer to the possibility of an influx of Chinese from Hong Kong to this country. I agree, of course, that a really major influx would create awkward problems but I have been struck in recent years by the way in which there is hardly a small town in England which does not have a Chinese restaurant and that with very rare exceptions one never sees accounts in the press of Chinese in trouble. I do not know whether there are any figures for UK citizens of Chinese race in the country I suspect there are none; and in any case some of them (e.g. in the Tiger Bay area of Cardiff) have been here for a long time. All the same, the Chinese seem to assimilate themselves (or at least not to obtrude on the local scene) in a much more successful way than e.g. West Indians. The same appears to me to be true of some of the Asians. Those from Uganda also seem to have got themselves well dug in. Moreover, if it is possible to generalise about public attitudes, I think that there is less prejudice towards those of Chinese race than there is towards Blacks.
3. In saying all this I am not of course suggesting that we should under-estimate the problem, but I suggest that we should not over-estimate it either.
30
cc
Mr. Cortazzi
Mr. Faber Mr. O'Keefe
(R.A. Sykes)
10 March, 1976.
151B
事
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.