TNAG-0794-FCO40-998-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1978 — Page 177

CONFIDENTIAL

Mr Murray

сс

Mr Cortazzi

12

Mr Weir

Heads of:

UND

Mr

smpson

HRIS 243/1

KATALO IN REGISTRYNO. 51 13 DEC 1978

SEAD

FED

HK&GD

M&VD

OFC

INDEX

RL

Action T

351

INDO-CHINESE REFUGEES

No

When you come to consider the results of the UNHCR consultations in Geneva, there are three points arising out of paragraph 6(v) of your submission of 6 December to the Private Secretary which it may be worth bearing in mind.

(a) If the UK is to join other countries in bringing pressure on the Vietnamese Government, we need to be able to specify, probably publicly, what we want them to do. On general human rights grounds, the aim cannot be to ensure that refugees are not allowed out of Vietnam at all (cf the Berlin Wall). Nor is, I think, realistic to press the Vietnamese Government to return expropriated property to the Chinese. You suggest, as a minimum, trying to get the Vietnamese to cooperate in introducing greater orderliness in the outflow, eg perhaps so and so many refugees a week, but the corollary would be an under- taking to receive this number of refugees, and the UK is not in a good position to join in such an undertaking.

(b) These objections apply to bringing pressure on the Vietnamese Government to adopt a particular solution. This is not to say that generalised condemnations of Vietnamese behaviour might not be effective in lessening the problem, if the Vietnamese set store on better relations with ASEAN and the West generally, and see that these are being jeopardised by the way the refugees are being treated.

(c) But this implies that Western countries, including perhaps particularly the Nine, should not move precipitately to cut off aid to Vietnam, thus depriving the Vietnamese of any incentive to do better. This is reinforced by the point which both the American and Japanese Planners recently made to us:

that Vietnam, having fought for its independence for 30 years, will not be willing to be dominated totally by the Soviet Union as long as the West is willing to provide the beginnings of an alternative, eg through economic aid.

CONFIDENTIAL

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