CONFIDENTIAL
PRIORITY
K
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responses on
resettlement will encourage other countries to give
further assistance to Hong Kong with resettlement.
ADDITIONAL POINTS (DEFENSIVE)
6. (Closed camps.) Present circumstances do not make it
possible to accept SCORRI's recommendation that Hong Kong's
closed camp policy be ended. The decline since 1982 in the rate
at which Vietnamese refugees have arrived in Hong Kong, compared
with that for the South East Asian region as a whole, is almost
certainly due to the closed camp policy. In HMG's view,
abolition of the policy would cause a sharp rise in the number of
arrivals in Hong Kong, and consequently an unacceptable and
unmanageable rise in the camp population in Hong Kong.
7. (UK's record on resettlement of Vietnamese.) The UK has
accepted some 19,000 Vietnamese refugees for resettlement since
1979, most of them from Hong Kong. It has a continuing
international commitment to accept close family reunion and ship
rescue cases. As SCORRI's report recognised, the Vietnamese have
had difficulty in adapting to life in the UK. Despite this HMG
recognise the need identified by SCORRI to revive the
international resettlement programme to reduce the burden on Hong Kong and to reunite those in camps with their families in
the UK. It has therefore decided to accept SCORRI's
recommendation that the family reunion criteria exceptionally be
relaxed for Vietnamese at present in camps in countries of
temporary asylum.
BACKGROUND (FOR USE AS NECESSARY)
8.
Since 1975 over 100,000 Vietnamese refugees have arrived in
Hong Kong. All have been offered temporary asylum by the HKG.
None have been turned away. Hong Kong has also accepted some
14,500 displaced Indo-Chinese for permanent settlement.
9. At first the refugees were resettled at a rate which kept pace with the continuing influx from Vietnam. Since 1982 however the resettlement rate has slowed and the number of refugees in
Hong Kong
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