TNAG-0906-FCO40-1116-Immigration-from-China-to-Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 185

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if this conference is to be a success. It's rather a grim fact that the worst aspects of this refugees problem are happening not under the gaze of television; they're happening at sea or in Vietnam and SO it has not stirred the world hitherto as other events have done. Now, its terribly important that the media should keep this problem before the governments of the world otherwise this interest in this conference and the results we want from it won't be achieved. Well, what do we want from it? We want a resettlement programme of a size, of a speed, to be credible to us communities in East Asia who are being swamped by these arrivals from Vietnam. We have a right to expect that this burden will be taken off us within a measurable time and we should not delude ourselves that this would be an easy matter for the rest of the world. It will be a very difficult one but at any rate interest in the problem and realisation of its importance is growing fast and I think the omens are about as good as they could be at this stage. don't mean to imply for one moment that the success of the conference is assured; pledges have still to be received from participating countries; we

we don't even know yet who will participate and we don't know how much money or what the scale of pledges would be. It's only then we'll know whether really worthwhile contributions are being made. Nevertheless things are moving in the right direction.

I

There are two points that we made wherever we went and I think the two points are worth finishing on. The first was that the resettlement programme must be fair to all the beneficiary countries. I have a very distinct feeling that so far Hong Kong 3. done badly. For instance, Malaysia with a a similar rate of intaks to ourselves has a quota of 3,000 a month, we have one of 400. And I put it very firmly both in London and Washington, to Dr Waldheim and to Mr Hartling that if they wish to reward inhuman? ‘y or inhumane tactics by giving large numbers of resettlement places or penalising humanity by withholding rasettlement places, that is the best possible way to make trouble in this part of the world. And Hong Kong for one could not be expected to stand for it and I think this point has been well taken.

The other was that in future the quota of resettlement places for refugees must be proportionate to their intake. If you receive 20,000 in a month then the off-take should be a proportion of 20,000, and whatever your political position may be or what pull you may have in the United Nations or what you say you're going to do to the refugees if they are not taken off you, should not bear on this matter at all. It should be a purely mathematical formula based on the number of refugees which are coming in and which the people of first asylum are required to support. And we were assured both in Washington and in New York and in Geneva that this point was well taken and would be watched in future. And they have admitted we have not been dealt with fairly hitherto.

Q.

Any questions:

: Sir, you said that they said Hong Kong had not been

fairly dealt with? Could you tell us who

?

/ contd