CONFIDENTIAL
10.
Kong
Chancery, Tokyo met
met Horimura
(compared
in November; he
he said
that in 1985 Japan expected to
to take 54 refugees from Hong
to 34 in 1984; in the event 52 were
resettled in 1985); that the date of the resettlement mission might be further advanced to end-1985; and that the mission might interview more refugees than hitherto.
11.
Director of
February that
interviewed.
inflexible and that
At a UNHCR meeting in January Japan announced that
25 refugees accepted for resettlement in Japan were awaiting travel from Hong Kong, and that the possibility of taking more was being studied. The 25 had in fact been accepted by a mission in early 1985; Suganuma (Deputy Refugees Division) told Chancery, Tokyo in most of them were already in Japan, and that
the end-1985 mission
mission had
had accepted 5 out of 134 refugees
Suganuma conceded that the criteria were that although Japan was avowedly willing to
accept
refugees, more
the
of application
rules Japan's would produce few candidates. He added that his Division favoured changing the rules So
that resettlement could be
made easier, but that other Ministries with a vested
interest in maintaining high employment for Japanese opposed any such move. Suganuma indicated that thinking was still at an early stage, and that any decision was a long way off. He said that many Vietnamese refugees had found it difficult to integrate into Japanese society (cf other ethnic minorities eg Koreans). In response to
case to bolster his his request for material
have sent
and Australian
Tokyo
details of
the US,
we
the MFA's
Canadian
resettlement criteria.
12.
in general terms
The Minister in Tokyo (Mr Hitch) raised the subject
with Yanagiya (PUS
(PUS equivalent, MFA)
February
and
HM Ambassador
April
his
concern
over
expressed
Japan's
in
to
Yanagiya
on
17
poor
resettlement
performance: the latter took note.
CONFIDENTIAL
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