TNAG-1274-FCO40-1624-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 288

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CONFIDENTIAL

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Mr Burges Watson

VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN HONG KONG

1. I was glad to see that, in his minute of 7 June, Mr Williams had underlined the important point that UNHCR will not welcome a request for them to pursue arrangements for involuntary repatriation. There may well be some advantage however, as he suggests, in persuadil UNHCR to look at 'guarantees or inducements' to 'encourage' refugees to return. This is the most we would consider proper to do ourselves (though it is not for us to arrange). It may well therefore be as much as we can properly ask UNHCR to do. They may well reveal, for example, that they are pursuing these guarantees at our instigation.

2. This is by no means going to provide a full solution, however, either to the refugee problem or to Hong Kong's immediate concerns. We got as far as submitting to the Secretary of State in March about involuntary repatriation precisely because Hong Kong insisted that plans for voluntary repatriation could only ever apply to a tiny propo tion of their arrivals. The important step is indeed the final stage suggested in Mr Clift's minute of 31 May: a showdown between the incom patible positions of UNHCR and the US Government which lie at the heart of Hong Kong's problem. In my view this is the only realistic avenue for any progress at all through purely diplomatic channels.

13. If this founders

on American insistence that we do something ourselves, then the solution is not in the FCO's hands. Either the Home Office must be persuaded to accept a new quota, or the Treasury persuaded that we have some residual moral responsibility for Hong Kong's problem and if they don't want to pay more unemployment benefit for Vietnamese resettled here they might at least contribute to Hong Kong's expenses in keeping them in closed camps over there. I think it is significant that when discussing Japan's performance when he was here in November Ambassador Douglas commented that the US were taking Japan's residue but of course the Japanese were contribu- ting substantially to the expenses of the camp at Bataan in the Philip- pines.

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4. In my view, we risk unnecessarily weakening our policy towards Vietnam because of the refugee problem. Hong Kong officials did not wish to raise the problem with the Prime Minister last autumn (though they continue to insist it is urgent and serious). Nor have they wanted to complicate their relations with China by raising the question of the assistance the Chinese authorities give to the boat people as they sail round the coast. Likewise this is unlikely to be discussed at a very high level with the Americans; and we must rightly, as Mr Williams points out, avoid compromising our relations with UNHCR. But at the same time some of the ideas currently canvassed, which we have accepted for wider reasons, do have serious implications for our policy towards Vietnam. It is not only hard to justify publicly, but also cuts right across our current view of the Vietnamese that we shou

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