I C Orr Esq
APA
HONG KONG
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545
PA HKK 240/1
783/8
BRITISH EMBASSY
PEKING
30 July 1979
1.
い
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES AND CHINA
1. At a reception to celebrate the Peruvian national day, I met Gao Shikun, Director of Consular Department, MFA. Gao apologized for having misled me over figures
over figures of Vietnamese refugees at the Queen's Birthday Party in June. He had given me a total of 270,000. The figure was now just over 250,000. Although there were less people arriving by sea since the Geneva Conference, there had so far been no let up in those coming across the land border, amounting to several hundreds each day.
2. A growing proportion of the refugees were ethnically Vietnamese. Gao was not sure of the total number of Vietnamese among the 250,000 but thought it was above 10,000. He nevertheless still thought the problem was a finite one, at least in the North, as most of the ethnically Vietnamese
had some connection, through family ties or working relationships with overseas Chinese and Vietnamese of Chinese descent.
3. Gao did not think it likely that the Chinese would be setting up a camp for refugees awaiting resettlement under U.N.H.Č.R. auspices. He said that unlike other countries in the region, China did not possess suitable uninhabited offshore islands, and was in any case concerned less such a centre should attract even greater numbers who could not easily be resettled. When I suggested that for this reason we had imagined any Chinese camp might be situated well away from the coast he said that there were many administrative problems. He thought that most who were likely in the end to get visas for their ultimate destination - France, the U.S.A. or Canada - would get them anyway by applying from within China. I said that I hoped that those who wished to move on from China but had difficulty obtaining the necessary visas would not imagine that these would be more easily
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