TNAG-0802-FCO40-1006-Immigration-from-China-to-Hong-Kong-1978 — Page 131

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5.

Tan said that he would report my remarks to his Director. Although he repeated that we should "not be too worried" about the problem, I think he appreciated that we are and that we shall continue to be so unless numbers come down very soon. We shall be looking again at our options later this month and may well decide, unless there is a significant reduction in September, that we should start referring to the possibility of controls at Lowu. Meanwhile, I shall give N CN A weekly reports of numbers to emphasise the importance we attach to the September figures coming down.

6.

We had a brief discussion of our problems with refugees from Vietnam, a subject which Tan took up after I had referred to it in passing. I gave him a fairly full account of our policy and referred to the fact that a number of recent arrivals had come on junks which had stopped at Hainan Island to take on supplies. I asked Tan how many small-boat refugees had landed in China recently and what Chinese policy towards them was. He said he knew no more than press accounts here about those who had stopped in Hainan. He did not demur when I suggested that if China's policy was more restrictive than that of Hong Kong this was one factor adding to our difficulties here.

Yours ever,

I mi

(I C Orr)

CC

K Sullivan Esq Peking

RE Allen Esq

FED

F CO

Research Dept

FE Section F CO

CONFIDENTIAL