TNAG-1419-FCO40-1902-Hong-Kong-Parliamentary-Sub-Committee-on-Race-Relations-and--1985 — Page 103

CONFIDENTIAL

3. Immediately after the White Paper is published, we shall be

launching a major diplomatic campaign to persuade other countries to

accept additional numbers of refugees from Hong Kong. Although we

shall be approaching a wide range of countries (including

Commonwealth, EC and other European countries), a positive response

by the US, Canada and Australia, currently the main recipients of refugees from Hong Kong, will clearly be the key to success of this initiative. Although we shall be instructing Ottawa and Washington

to make high level aproaches to the US and Canadian Governments, would also be useful if the Secretary of State could raise the

matter with Mr Shultz and Mr Clark if the opportunity arises.

i t

US Position

4. The US has resettled some 60,000 Vietnamese refugees from Hong

Kong since 1975, more than any other country. It has accepted 1155

SO far in 1985 and is expected to take a further 100 a month for the

rest of the year. However this is considerably less than its

offtake from some other places of first asylum in the region, eg

Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, even though the population of boat

people in those countries is lower than Hong Kong's. US officials have repeatedly cited the UK's failure to take more refugees from

Hong Kong as a major reason for this.

Canadian Position

5. The Canadian off take from Hong Kong, 17,000 since 1975, is the

second highest after that of the US. They recently announced an

additional quota of 500 resettlement places for Hong Kong, in

addition to

to the 600 which they had previously allocated for 1985;

and have so far taken 750 this year. The Canadian High Commission have said to SCORRI that their intake of refugees from Hong Kong is

unlikely to be affected by British acceptance of a larger number:

nevertheless they are a major resettlement country and we should use the opportunity presented by publication of the White Paper to push Hong Kong's case with them.

CONFIDENTIAL