TNAG-0981-FCO40-1200-Immigration-from-China-to-Hong-Kong-1980 — Page 154

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5. We are continuing regularly to remind the Chinese in London,

Peking and Hong Kong of our concern. The Political Adviser in Hong

Kong and the Embassy in Peking have both taken up the subject

recently (along with that of legal immigration). Extensive measures

have also been taken on the Hong Kong side to improve the effective-

ness of the border controls (these measures have succeeded in

raising the proportion of illegal immigrants arrested from 1 in 5

a year ago to about 1 in 2 now).

(iii) Vietnamese Refugees

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6. There are still some 55,000 Vietnamese boat refugees in Hong

Kong awaiting resettlement. The Home Secretary has recently recom-

mended that the programme for resettling 10,000 of them in Britain

should be speeded up, so that they can all be brought here by the

end of the 1980-81 financial year some 15 months earlier than

originally envisaged. If the Prime Minister agrees, this will be

welcome news to the Governor, who attaches importance to the British

programme's setting the pace for other resettlement countries.

7. In the meantime, a complication has arisen over the agreement

reached with the Chinese for the return to China of any Vietnamese

refugees who enter Hong Kong illegally after first having been

resettled in China. The Hong Kong Government regard such people

as illegal immigrants, rather than refugees and are not therefore

prepared to give them temporary asylum in Hong Kong. But the UNHCR

office in Hong Kong have recently expressed concern over the policy

of returning such people to China, and the UNHCR headquarters have

taken the question up with the UK Mission in Geneva. We have

explained the policy to the UNHCR, and the Hong Kong Government have

allowed the UNHCR representative in Hong Kong to see the case files

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