TNAG-1537-FCO40-2101-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-resettlement-in-third-countri-1986 — Page 181

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

HKK 243/9

DOGAFC

HICK 243 CONFIDENTIAL

RECEIVED IN VEGI.

cvo2

B Hitch Esq MG CVO2 7 AUG 198.

TOKYO

Dear Hitel!

DEST

INDES

PA

5 August 1986

VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN HONG KONG: RESETTLEMENT IN JAPAN

Summary

1.

on

On 30 July Seki called on me to deliver the Japanese response to my demarche of 8 July exhorting the Japanese to improve their

on performance

resettlement Vietnamese Refugees from Hong Kong. He said that Japan was prepared to send further mission to Hong Kong in

and that

would Japan

try to flexibility in the

its interpretation of selecting refugees for resettlement in Japan.

1986,

Detail

a

introduce

criteria

more

for

2.

Seki set out what the Japanese Government factors inhibiting it from resettling refugees:

sees

as

(a) land scarcity in Japan;

(b) Japan's ethnic homogeneity

lead to racial tensions if large

large numbers were admitted. The Japanese Government was doing its best

this to educate people but would take time, like the Japan's domestic markets.);

(which

could

opening

of

(c) its

lack

of

in

role historical any resettling refugees (Seki said that Japan's only recent experience had been with (White) Russians earlier

what he called

earlier this century, and their unhappy experience

with Koreans and Chinese);

(d) sooner or later, as liberalisation of trade

proceeded,

Japan

would

have

to face

unemployment.

This

make would

it

even

harder to accept refugees;

CONFIDENTIAL

725