TNAG-1427-FCO40-1910-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-general-1986 — Page 112

From The Minister of State

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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

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MKC2 RECEIVED IN REGISTRY

2 0 NOV 1985

DESK OFFICER

INDEX

15 November 1985

PDGISTRY

PA

Action Taken

Pa

Dear Richard,

Thank you for your letter of 5 November about the problem of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong.

You will, I am sure, be pleased to know that the Government has decided to accept some 490 Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong for resettlement. This was announced in a White Paper published on 26 September in response to the Home Affairs Sub-Committee on Race Relations and Immigration (SCORRI)'s recent report "Refugees and Asylum with Special Reference to the Vietnamese". All the refugees have relatives in the UK, but would not have qualified for entry under the Home Office's normal immigration criteria for family reunion cases. A further 60 or so refugees in similar circumstances will also be admitted from other places of first asylum in South East Asia.

With regard to the refugees who are currently in Hong Kong, the White Paper also announced that:

(i)

depending on the willingness shown by other resettlement countries to respond to Hong Kong's needs, Her Majesty's Government 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; and

(ii) present circumstances do not make it possible to

agree to SCORRI's recommendation that Hong Kong's closed camp policy be ended. In Her Majesty's Government'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.

In co-operation with the Hong Kong Government and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, we are now actively pressing other countries also to take

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