TNAG-0972-FCO40-1191-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-1980 — Page 56

Sir E Youde

A.KK 24314

WED IN REG.2YRY NO. 51

3 JUL 1980

ICK OFFICER

PA

HE SISTRY

For Taken

Award Awalt

CONFIDENTIAL

INDEX

in

A

VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN HONG KONG

Problem

Should the Secretary of State ask Herr Genscher, the West.

German Foreign Minister, that the Federal Republic should accept

1.

more Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong.

Recommendation

2.

I recommend that the Secretary of State should not be asked

to pursue this and submit a draft reply to the Governor.

SEAD concur.

Background and Argument

3.

There are still some 39,000 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong.

A delegation from the Hong Kong Community Council for the Resettle-

ment of Vietnamese Refugees recently visited European countries to

try and persuade Governments to take more refugees from Hong Kong.

The Governor wrote to Mr Murray on 15 May about meetings which

Dr Stumpf, one of the Hong Kong delegation, had had with various

West German MPs. The Governor suggested that an approach from

the Secretary of State to Herr Genscher might help persuade the FRG

to increase their quota of refugees from Hong Kong. Mr Donald

B

then sought Sir Oliver Wright's views in a letter of 30 May.

C

4.

Sir Oliver Wright replied on 9 June. He thought that, provided

we could show that our record, taken over South-East Asia as a

whole, was at least as good as and preferably better than the FRG's

"

CONFIDENTIAL

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/an