TNAG-1275-FCO40-1625-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 196

BACKGROUND

CONFIDENTIAL

Hong Kong is concerned at the continued high level of refugee

arrivals particularly in the summer (more than 7,500 this year)

while resettlement places (principally in the US who have cut

down from 1,500 to 250 a month) have fallen sharply, despite

the best efforts of UNHCR. Unless refugee departures from

Vietnam drop sharply next year as a result of the discouraging

rate of resettlement, Hong Kong will face a build up of new

arrivals, and increasing difficulty in finding places for the

40% hard core cases who have been there more than two years.

We continue to lobby, eg, the US (Ambassador Eugene Douglas Douglas

was here last month), the Australians, Swedes, French, etc,

but are not in a position to help Hong Kong much ourselves.

Our Vietnamese refugee programme has not been an unqualified success

and in any case, apart from family reunion cases, the UK is

not the country the refugees want to go to.

Ever since the filling last year of our quota of 10,000 Hong Kong

boat people, opened in 1979, Hong Kong officials have made it

clear (for example to Lord Belstead in December) that they would

welcome a further, if smaller, quota not just to ease the pressure

of numbers but to remove some of the difficult cases and help

Hong Kong persuade other countries to do more too. We know the

Home Secretary is opposed to any further concessions but before

CONFIDENTIAL

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