TNAG-1472-FCO40-2003-Ministerial-visits-from-the-UK-to-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 49

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MINISTER:

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Well, the policy that is being operated at

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the present time is the policy of which you know, i.e. when people arrive here in Hong Kong or anywhere else having come from Vietnam they are automatically considered as refugees within the UN Convention, although there is no separate examination of their individual circumstances as there is an examination of the individual circumstances of, for instance, an Iranian who arrives in Britain, an Iraq, or what have you. So the policy at the present is to accept all those people as refugees, but because the refugees in Hong Kong are certainly not there as a result of any actions of the Hong Kong Government but arrive on their doorstep, as it were, by chance, there has been a recognition that the world community has to play its part in the settlement of those who come here.

MS ? What is the long-term solution ?

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well be repatriation, as I mentioned.

MINISTER: Well, I think the long-term solution may

I can't think of any other.

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MS EMILY LAU.

(Far East Economic Review)

Minister,

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what has Britain done it is a question on the BNO passport what has Britain done to sell this new passport to third countries and in your discussion with people here do you detect any level of anxiety about this new passport ?

MINISTER: Well, it was represented to me this morning that the situation with the new BNO passport should be better than

After all, the acceptability the situation with the BDTC passport.

of a passport depends almost entirely on the information which the receiving country has of the likelihood of that person being able to return elsewhere at the end of a visit which the person is claiming on arrival. Now, if you have got information in a BNO passport that that passport is considered of such importance by the 34 British Government that a person can arrive, for instance, in

Britain without a visa, and actually on the face of it, although it makes no difference in practice to the present practice because there

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