CONFIDENTIAL
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boat people". It may be however that the "boat people" are switching away from Thailand to other destinations.
5. The evidence available from inside Vietnam suggests that as
There are many people as ever are contemplating illegal departures. one or two signs that the "crackdown" on 1llegal departures, which we first noticed last summer, may if anything be easing up. (John Ramsden predicted in his letter 243/4 of 24 August to Kevin Burns that this might happen, as soon as local echelons felt safe to start making money again out of the boat people. However we expect the "tap" to be kept fairly tight this year It is a question of nuances.)
6. There are now very many people in the main cities and coastal toms who have friends or relatives abroad. They are able to correspond fairly easily with them, and to receive a bewildering variety of parcels from them. The trend is towarda o ateady increase, Private shops in Hanoi are starting to sell the game mostern luxury item (blue The jeans, moire up etc) that havo ́long been available in Salgon, outflow of refugees since 1975 has created a web of contacto between Vietnamese here and abroad that can only have a self-reinforcing offcct. Naturelly evory Vietnamore family wants to have at least one member abroad, while those who already have a relativo abroad receivo
This is frequent reminders of the economic advantages of tho West.
the real pull factor, end I fear it is too late to do much about it.
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There is one small ray of hope. We have started to hear stories of Vietnamo se refugcos (no doubt a small minority) who feel miserable abroad, either because they find it hard to make a living, or because they find western societies unattractive compared to their own communities. The communist rogime in Vlotnon lo indeed oppressive and corrupt, but it has not entirely stamped out the traditional Vietnamese way of life. In fact the people seen surprisingly good at clinging on to their traditional patterns, despite the pressures of "socialist realism". It is a way of life that many Vietnamese find hard to port with. The choice for them, I fear, is between poverty and lack of freedom in Vietnam, and loneliness and alienation abroad. Until recently people here have had utopian illusions about life in the West.
8. My first, very modest, policy recommendation is that we should not be afraid to highlight the darker side of life in the West, which is what the refugees are more likely to experience once they get there. I doubt if, at this stage, there is anything much we can do to halt the outflow of "bost people". That will probably not come about until the Cambodian problem has been settled, relations with the West (and China) are restored to a more normal state, and Vietnam has begun to reconstruct her economy. However we ought to do what we can to influence matters in our favour.
9. My second recommendation would accordingly be to reinforce the proposals in my teleletter of 29 June. Countries of final asylum should begin by adopting as their guiding principle the position that, subject only to the need to respect the rights of refugees, Vietnamese
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