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registers for an identity card.
We have followed this practice because it would have been difficult to take action to enforce the departure of transit passengers while illegal immigrants, who had "touched base”, were being allowed to stay. If we had refused extensions of stay the passengers would, in any case, have been able to discard their passports and pass themselves off as illegal immigrants.
4.
We are, of course, entering a new situation as a result of "Champion". We are not planning any immediate change in the arrangements for legal immigrants from China who hold permits for travel between China and Hong Kong. However, we will be trying to ensure that transit passengers from China holding PRC passports really do leave. In future, extensions of stay will be granted to transit passengers only where they are needed and then normally for a short period. We also hope that we can soon start returning to China any transit passenger who does not leave by the end of his permitted period of stay. We assume that provided the transit passenger has been given an adequate chance to move on, but have not done so, the Chinese authorities will not object to his being returned to China, The mechanics of returning them (whether at Lo Wu or as part of the "Champion" arrangements) have yet to be arranged.
5.
Once we are in a position to return those transit passengers who remain in Hong Kong and are detected - unfortunately there will still be a chance of their remaining illegally for long periods - we can be a little more relaxad on landing of transit passengers at Lo Wu. We will have to feel our way carefully as there are still many cases of obviously fraudulent transit passengers who have no intention of leaving Hong Kong and we must maintain means of dealing with them, either by refusal of entry at Lo Wu (the pre 22 March arrangements, see para 3 of my tel no 1278 to FCO) or by detention pending departure at Kai Tak or voluntary return to China. Detention and escort arrangements are very troublesome to us as well as contentious to the Chinese. We hope the percentage of travellers involved can be reduced (but I do not think we should give the Chinese any indication of this until we have actually achieved the reduction). We could not, of course, concede that we had abandoned our right to enforce the Hong Kong Immigration laws at Lo Wu (which is what any agreement to cease to detain, escort or refuse landing to passengers would imply).
6.
We hope to move fairly quickly towards being much tougher with transit passengers who are landed in Hong Kong and do not move on in order to discourage the high rate of overstaying and, if this is ineffective, the problem will become much more manageable. I will keep you informed of progress but it is too early to say how things will go. Much depends on the degree of co-operation from the Chinese and the effectiveness of our attempts at identifying overstaying transit passengers.
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