TNAG-0984-FCO40-1203-Immigration-from-China-to-Hong-Kong-1980 — Page 20

- 3.

3 -

In addition to distaste for ending a traditional

policy,

the main reason has been the possibility of crime and corruption if such a policy failed to achieve its purpose of stopping the inflow, and of a sub-stratum of society living outside the law growing up, and I will

come back to this. But your Government considered these dangers sufficiently serious to refuse to accept them unless and until we were assured: -

Firstly, that the flow of illegal immigration itself had reached a stage at which it posed dangers greater than those involved in abandoning traditional policy. For

reasons I described to you in my address on October 1 that is

already the case, and the total arrests for August and

September were worryingly high

has continued into October.

26,000; and this trend

...

Secondly, that the present measures by the Chinese and our own forces would be unlikely to stop the flow, as they have done in the past, unless some new element were introduced to help. This too is now clearly the

case.

Thirdly, that direct discussion with the Chinese

leaders at Central and Provincial level had confirmed our

eaders

belief that this change of policy on our part really would assist them and us; and that, having regard

to the new and resolute action we would take, we could

count on them also stepping up their own efforts so that,

with each of us adopting our own measures, there would be