TNAG-0890-FCO40-1100-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 227

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4. Lord Carrington said that Dr Waldehim had told the UN Hign Commissioner for Refugees that he thought it should be a UN Conference, but he wanted to know in advance of its convening that there would be adequate pledges to take in refugees so that the Conference could be more successful than the previous one.

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Britain's

particular problem was Hong Kong which already had 42,000 Vietnamese refugees With the flood of legal and illegal immigrants from China it faced a very serious problem. The Governor of Hong Kong was being called back to London to report at first hand. The number of legal immigrants had been reduced a bit but not enough and the illegals were still pouring in.

till pouring in. Was there anything the Chinese Government could do to stop them?

Cơ s

5. Mr Ke Hua said that Mr Zhang Wenjin, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, had discussed the matter with the British Ambassador in Peking and the Lord Privy Seal had appeared to be satisfied with the position on legal immigrants. The Ambassador had already reported Sir I Gilmoun's hope that the Chinese Government would adopt further measures to stop the flow of illegals. He would take the matter up himself when he was back in Peking later this month.

6.

Lord Carrington then referred to the 40 refugees on the vessel "Norse Viking and asked if the Chinese would look at the problem again.

He was worried that there would be an obvious disincentive for captains of British vessels in the area if they could not be sure that they could put ashore at their first port of call any refugees whom they had saved from drowning at sea.

If we could

was

get international acceptance for the first port of call principle, this would bring some order to a chaotic situation. Mr Ke said that in the past the Chinese had generally accepted as an international norm the first port of call rule, and had accepted those who had come to China as their first port of call. However the Norse Viking

different as the Vietnamese authorities had forced the refugees to leave Vietnam and were forcing other countries to accept them. The refugees were not refugees in the true sense of the term but were "political refugees". Lord Carrington said that they were nonetheless still refugees. Mr Ke conceded that they were and said that the "Norse Viking" presented a concrete situation of which one must take cognisance.

7. Lord Carrington then asked what pressure might be brought to bear on the Vietnamese Government. Mr Ke said that in the course

of their negotiations with the Vietnamese the Chinese had said that among the 230,000 refugees whom they had taken in some wished to return to Vietnam. However the Vietnamese refused to accept these people even though they were ethnic Vietnamese. They were not amenable to reason and

there was nothing to be done except to expose them and their attitude.

Lord Carrington said that we had approached the Soviet Union, but had been told by the Russians that it was

an internal Vietnamese affair and that the Soviet Union did not interefere in the internal affairs of other states. Overall it was a worrying situation particularly for Hong Kong. Mr Ke repeated that so far as the question of illegal immigrants into Hong Kong was concerned, the Chinese would see to it that they would take measures to check the flow, but results would not appear overnight.

CONFI NTIAL

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