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dwindling, and in any event any resettlement that we could achieve risked reviving the pull factor and giving more people an incentive to leave Vietnam. No doubt it would theoretically be possible for
Hong Kong to absorb the present camp population without difficulty,
but to do so would simply stimulate a continuing flow. It
apparently came as something of a revelation to Mr Heath that the
typical refugee today was not a persecuted South Vietnamese offical
but a North Vietnamese peasant or fisherman seeking a better
economic environment.
Your Briefing for Mr Heath
5.
When you speak to Mr Heath later today you will obviously want
to base yourself on what the Secretary of State has already told
him. The Secretary of State has asked that you emphasise again the
extreme sensitivity of the information which he has given Mr Heath
about the decisions to be announced in the White Paper. You will
also want to correct the figures given to Mr Heath on the proportion
of directly elected seats to be introduced in 1991. You could also
point out that it will remain open to the Hong Kong Government to
increase this proportion further at the subsequent round of LegCo
elections, assuming that there is still some leeway between the 1991 arrangements and those set out in the Basic Law.
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