TNAG-0803-FCO40-1007-Immigration-from-China-to-Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 24

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only issued to those claiming an onward destination if they already had a visa from the Embassy in China of the country to which they wished to travel. The only exception to this at present was the "visa promise" letter sent by the US Consulate-General in Hong Kong to families outside China whose petition for their relatives in China to join them was already on file with the US Consulate-General. This was a standard document and I reminded Mr Tan that I had already given him a copy. Anyone wishing to travel to the US should have such a letter if they did not already hold a US visa. I said that there seemed no practical difficulties in making arrangements for potential emigrants from China to obtain visas before they left. Canada was a good example. A considerable proportion of those reaching Hong Kong with visas were going to Canada: possibly because the system worked so smoothly in this case, it was very exceptional for people to arrive in Hong Kong without a visa but claiming Canada as their onward destination.

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I said that it was no doubt easier for detailed statistics to be collected at Low than it was for the Chinese authorities to obtain a global picture of numbers and types of travel documents issued by different provinces in China. We would be very grateful to be told of any changes in procedures for travel documents being issued in China since this would enable us to monitor the effect at Lowu. In return, we would be very happy to provide detailed statistics for any period if this would help the Chinese authorities. Mr Tan thanked me for this offer and said that he might wish to ask some more questions after he had completed his own analysis of the figures. He agreed warmly with my suggestion that this was a major practical problem and that both sides needed to do all they could to find an early solution to it. Mr Tan briefly mentioned the question of the distinction between travel documents valid for a single or for a return journey. I said that we would try to supply any details we had on the numbers involved but reminded him that, as Dr Wilson had pointed out, it was unlikely that this distinction would offer any practical way to reduce the numbers of people coming to stay permanently in Hong Kong. What was really needed was for fewer travel documents to be issued to people who did not have visas for an onward destination. I pointed out that on the previous two days there had still been a high number of arrivals without visas, all of whom in fact had the Philippines as their declared onward destination: 154 on 16 December and 173 on 17 December. I telephoned Mr Tan today to tell him that the corresponding figures for the 18 and 19 December were 105 and 64 and expressed the hope that this marked the

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