TNAG-0664-FCO40-813-Immigration-from-China-to-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 22

SCR 6/2091/35 18

CONFIDENTIAL

HKK. 34/30/1.

19

NOTE FOR THE RECORD.

Illegal Immigration from China

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When Mr Tan of the NCNA called on me today on another matter, he started the discussion by expressing his concern about the article in the 'South China Morning Post' this morning on illegal immigration. had been surprised and worried to hear what Lord Goronwy-Roberts had said in London and also by the rest of the article. (The article refers inaccurately to the nature of agreements with China on illegal immigrants. In particular it states that there is a Chinese

guarantee" about not ill-treating returned illegals and an "agreement" tying our returning illegals to Chinese willingness to reduce the number of legal emigrants.)

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Without giving him a chance to launch into a lengthy complaint, I told Mr Tan that the article was full of errors. It certainly did not emanate from me or any official source in the Hong Kong Government. Tan would know better than I, the Hong Kong press frequently made mistakes. I explained that we had already received clarification from London saying that Lord Goronwy-Roberts had not made the statement attributed to him about illegal immigrants being allowed to see lawyers. The rest of the article was also full of errors. I said that both Mr Tan and I were well aware of the nature of the agreements reached and their limitations. I added that the Chinese authorities would of course be well aware of our problem about public concern if reports reached here saying that returned "escapees" had been harshly treated. Mr Tan assured me that this was not the case. Escapees were treated as a "contradiction amongst the people" and not a "contradiction between the enemy and ourselves" (i.e. they were not treated as serious criminal offenders). Sometimes there were even parties organised to welcome réturned escapees_to show them how wrong they were to think that life in Hong Kong might be better. I said I was glad to get this assurance from Mr Tan.

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The conversation concluded by Mr Tan saying that he was very pleased to hear that the statement attributed to Lord Goronvy-Roberts was false. Had it been true, there would be endless difficulties for himself and me.

CC

s for S DS B D of I

NCNA file

(D C Wilson)

PA 9.12.77

R C Samuel Esq FED FCO

JAB Stewart Esq 03E HKGD FCO PJ L Popplewell Eso PEKING

CONFIDENTIAL