TNAG-1179-FCO40-1481-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-into-the--1982 — Page 30

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2.

In answer to a question, Mr Levin confirmed

that the new measures would take effect immediately; but that they would not be retroactive; cases already approved by INS would not be affected. Mr Kassebaum

said that as a very rough indication, some 75% of the

last 3,000 cases accepted by the USA from Hong Kong

would have been ineligible under the new criteria.

This could be a misleading proportion, however, because

the 3,000 spanned a period both before and after the

December 4E exclusion. Mr Levin said this seemed a strong

argument for giving clear and systematic publicity to the changes. If Hong Kong could complement this with some

deterrent measures of its own, that would help.

3.

S for S said that although vastly smaller than

the USA, Hong Kong faced very strong political and social

pressures over the issue as well. Government was often

criticised for looking after Vietnamese refugees at a time when Hong Kong's own people could not bring in their families from China, and when fire-victims in large numbers

had to be accommodated too. He fully understood the

restrictions which resettlement countries had been intro

ducing indeed a number of countries no longer had resettle- ment programmes at all; and apart from the United States, to whom Hong Kong remained profoundly grateful, only Canada,

Australia and France were still taking refugees from Hong

Kong. As to deterrence, although Government was often

criticised for not taking the tough line which other

countries in the region had done, we would not find some-

thing like the Thai deterrent policy easy to emulate : we

would face considerable political difficulty in trying to

apply the sort of force with which the Thai were able to

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