TNAG-0906-FCO40-1116-Immigration-from-China-to-Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 182

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HKK 34!

PRESS CONFERENCE BY H.E. THE GOVERNOR 27/6/79

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PH AW

45

refugees

Sir Murray:

ล

lot of countries

since

Woll, gontleman, we've covered

I'm sorry, I didn't see I saw you last. Lady and gentlemen: you there Patricia. I've attended many press conferences in my time but I've never seen quite so much hardware on the table before, and it looks as if it's of an infinitely better quality.

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It

Well, first of all why did we go on this visit? was to do with two basic problems: first of all, the problem of excessive Chinese immigration which was in danger of swamping Hong Kong and over which the Chinese authorities have been slow to take remedial action. Because of this we have had to deploy the entire Garrison to try and arrest the inflow and deter it and were reaching a point at which the men were getting very tired and they were not going to be able to continue with this maximum effort indefinitely and therefore reinforcements were necessary.

My first task was to explain to the people in London why. Now, this is a bilateral problem between ourselves and China. The Chinese authorities have given us very firm assurances that they will bring the number down and I haven't the slightest doubt that these assurances will be honoured. just a question of time. But during the time the numbers matte: us enormously, SO it's very important that we keep up our

Vietnam.

are

It's

effort

The other problem was the problem of refugees from

even though it This isn't a bilateral problem at all hits Hong Kong particularly hard. It's a regional problem and a world basis because it can only be solved, in my opinion, on

Hence Mrs. the numbers which must be resettled

so great.

And Thatcher's imaginative and timely call for a conference. here we felt that with out first hand knowledge of the problem we might perhaps be able to help those in London and Washington and New York and Geneva by telling them what we knew of the problem at first hand and that this would help the whole proces

on the ground. along of getting a worthwhile conference on

Of co all the time, as you probably realise, intense diplomatic activ I think no less than to support this conference is developing. 54 of the Missions in London have been called in and spoken te. So this was our object.

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CO

Now, you want to know who we saw and what ground we ed with them. In London, we had talks with Lord Carrington and Mr Blaker, a good scion of a Hong Kong family; Sir Ian Gilmour

We had talks with the and other Foreign Office Ministers. Minister of Defence, Mr Pym, and Mr Whitelaw the Home Secretary

These and, of course, most important of all, Mrs Thatcher. talks resulted in agreement to send reinforcements at once and am delighted to see how quickly they've arrived.

It also produced a general discussion about our situatio in the face of Vietnamese refugees and complete support for the

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