TNAG-1420-FCO40-1903-Hong-Kong-Parliamentary-Sub-Committee-on-Race-Relations-and--1985 — Page 77

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CONFIDENTIAL

(ii)

3.

refugees, mostly from Hong Kong, who have relatives in the

UK but who would normally fall outside the Home Office's

immigration criteria for family reunion cases.

that, depending on the willingness shown by other resettlement countries to respond to Hong Kong's needs,

HMG are prepared to consider accepting further limited numbers from Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Government would similarly be prepared to absorb limited numbers into Hong Kong from the camps, but again this will depend on

other countries' response to the UK's initiative.

In order to maximise the effect of this decision, we are

conducting a major diplomatic campaign to persuade other

countries also to take

take additional numbers of refugees from Hong Kong. We have instructed posts in a wide range of countries (the

US, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, EC and other European

countries), to approach their host governments immediately after

the White Paper is published. We wish to reinforce these

approaches by raising the subject at bilateral and multilateral meetings whenever opportunities arise in the coming weeks.

would be very helpful if Mr Thomas could do so at the Political

Committee. Mr Rifkind raised the matter at the Foreign Affairs

Council lunch on 1 October.

It

4.

At present Hong Kong depends mainly on the US, Canada and

Australia for resettlement places for the Vietnamese.

EC

countries have accepted varying numbers of refugees from Hong Kong since 1975. The UK, West Germany and France have taken the

most (12,300, 2,400 and 1,600 respectively), and Luxembourg the

least (5). France currently accepts the highest number from all sources (but, not surprisingly given its historical links with

all the Indo-Chinese countries, accepts many more from elsewhere in South East Asia than it does from Hong Kong).

Hong Kong Department

4 October 1985

CONFIDENTIAL