Hong Kong in Australia..... The Australian Government would certainly take any resumption of resettlement of Indo-Chinese refugees in Britain into very careful account in considering the Australian programme for the next programme year 1985/86. The decision by the United Kingdom to resume resettlement
would undoubtedly be regarded as a most positive development".
The Australian Government also made the point which they say
takes into account the position of the United States, that
"a renewed commitment by the United Kingdom to resettlement from Hong Kong would be a precondition for any coordinated international effort to address the Hong Kong situation".
These quotes I think you will agree unequivocally put the onus
on the UK to take the initiative.
As I said in my introductory remarks, Britain's record overall in absorbing refugees from Vietnam is creditable. But it is our current performance to which other resettlement countries draw
attention. Flag E. From 1975 to 1984 we took a total of 12,269 (11.9%) during the same period the United States took
60,121 (58.4%) and Australia 4,521 (4.4%). By contrast during 1984 the UK took 88 refugees (2.4%) of the total from Hong Kong;
the United States took 1,541 (41.7%), and Australia 736 (19.9%).
You will be aware of course from part II of our memorandum that although Hong Kong has the largest case load of Vietnamese refugees in the region, the rate of resettlement from other first asylum countries in the region eg Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia
is far greater.
Do you Believe that Other Countries would take more from Hong Kong if we agreed to accept another 100?
This is clearly a difficult area of speculation. As you will know from our memorandum, at the 1979 Geneva Conference on Indo-Chinese Refugees we agreed to take over 10,000 refugees from Hong Kong.
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