TNAG-1274-FCO40-1624-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 55

Commissioner, London Office

From

VR/BRC

Ref.

.in....

Tel. No.

Date

01-499 9821 ext 60

21 December 1983

Pl. tramafer this рада paper to 243/1

MEMO

To

CC

Your Ref.

dated

Gutet

1869

the Keller or.

TU$231,

Secretary for Security

(for Mr C Leeks)

SHA (w/o encl), FCO/HKD &

in

FCO/SEAD

BRC Asia Committee Meeting

of 20.12.83

The undersigned attended the above meeting. This note aims, as before, to give early alert to points of significance or interest to Hong Kong. The full minutes, when received, will of course be forwarded. (Here I apologise for the apparent låte transmission of previous BRC minutes : I was home in Hong Kong when they came into our office.)

2.

Present at yesterday's meeting were also the Chairman of the BRC Executive Council (Sir Arthur Peterson) and representatives of the Home Office (Jim Nicholson) and FCO/SEAD (Chris Seagar).

3. Both Lord Ennals and Martin Barber were warmly forth- coming in expressing their appreciation to the Hong Kong Government in inviting them to Hong Kong and arranging their programme. There can be no doubt that the visits have reinforced their sympathy for Hong Kong and done much to clear their view and understanding of the difficulties faced by the Hong Kong Government. At their suggestion, the Committee decided that an approach should be renewed to the Home Office and FCO, on behalf of Hong Kong, for :

(a)

(b)

admission of 25 unaccompanied minors;

acceptance of further cases of family reunion, especially with closer relatives.

An ad hoc working group of the Committee would be convened to study these two areas in detail, including an examination of specific cases, and to make recommendations to the BRC Executive Council at its meeting on 17.1.84. It was also suggested that, ideally, measures to be taken by HMG should be a "contingent" or "conditional" over, ie that governments of other prospective resettlement territories should be required to take Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong, preferably on a similar percentage (of their current cumu- lative total).

.../2

•HKK 243/1

RECEIVED IN KLGIVERY

27 DEC 1783

PA

REGISTRY

mchon Taken