TNAG-1180-FCO40-1482-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-into-the--1982 — Page 97

CONFIDENTIAL

VIETNAMESE REFUGEES

(66)

Note of a call by Mr Henry Cushing

at the Government Secretariat,

Hong Kong, on 1 April 1982

HKK 243|1

DISK

No

C4E

رجمة

415 HP 415

Present

Mr Henry Cushing

(Asian Refugees Office Director, State Dept)

Mr Burton Levin (U.S. Consul-General

Hong Kong)

Mr Jere Broh-Kahn,

(USC-G)

Mr Cary Kassebaum,

(USC-G)

Mr J.R. Heywood

(Acting Secretary

for Security)

Mr R.J.T. McLaren)

(Political Adviser)

Mr L.W. Boyes

(PAS, Security Branch)

*

S for S welcomed Mr Cushing and briefly rehearsed the refugee situation in Hong Kong, with particular reference to the "hard core" cases who, contrary to certain misconceptions, were very largely the victims of administrative, rather than legal, disqualification from earlier resettlement programmes. It was also significant that some 95% of these 5,000 or 6,000 were ethnic Chinese, compared with our current new arrivals who were all but 100% ethnic Vietnamese. PA said that Vietnamese refugees here also had to be set in the context of heavy immigration, legal and illegal, from China: Hong Kong had absorbed some 400,000 people from China over the last 4 years; legal immigration from China was now running at a de facto quota of 55,000 per year; and last year's inflow of 8,470 Vietnamese roughly equalled the number of II's we had repatriated to China during the year. S for S reminded the visitors that in spite of this, Hong Kong had accepted for resettlement over $15,000

Vietnamese since 1975.

CONFIDENTIM

/2.