TNAG-1534-FCO40-2098-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-repatriation-1986 — Page 115

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that would not otherwise have been offered:

however few further responses to our present campaign are likely to materialise.

(b) As regards

time": the

must take

continuing

"all the circumstances at the

principal circumstance which we

into account is the need for

action to resolve

international

Hong Kong's refugee problem. Resettlement in

the West is the only practicable form this

action can take at present. The Home Office

may argue that a further

intake would

be 2 don't hund

difficult to present to Parliament and the his a genuine

public. We should counter this by pointing

out that, to the extent that Parliamentary

opinion is exercised about

UK of Vietnamese

and public

resettlement

in

the

refugees, it is sympathetic to their plight and conscious of the need to help them. The

Home Office may argue that Vietnamese

refugees should no longer be given any

preferential treatement in terms of UK immigration policy. We should point out that the refugees in Hong Kong are in a special category, in view of our responsibility for Hong Kong as a dependent territory.

the point that

argument.

✓

As well as this, we should make

any gap between the end of the "family reunion intake and the start

of a

further programme is likely to be perceived by other resettlement countries (and Hong Kong) as evidence of the UK's lack of will; and that this will make it very much

harder

to renew

of their

for

commitments

as

us later to

reach they

them persuade

the end

resettlement programmes in late 1986 and early

1987.

their

current

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