TNAG-1801-FCO40-2561-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-resettlement-in-the-UK-1988 — Page 123

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PS/ Lond Chantha ps /ner Eggan

Mr Gillmon пимелан

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Mr Traskah

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VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN HONG KONG

26 April

As you will recall, we announced in May last year that we would accept 468 named Vietnamese refugees from camps in Hong Kong who had been present in Hong Kong since before October 1986 and who had family links with the United Kingdom. Their arrival was to be phased over a two year period, at a rate of about 20 per month. I now understand that for various reasons not all of the 468 refugees will be coming to the United Kingdom and that there is, therefore, likely to be a shortfall of at least 70. The Hong Kong Government and the various voluntary agencies involved, including UNCHR, are anxious that the shortfall should be made up. The purpose of this minute is to inform you of my proposals.

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Our commitment to accept the 468, which was not agreed without some debate, was based on the argument that action on our part was needed as incentive to other countries to be more generous with their resettlement offers. I understand that the response to our commitment has, in fact, been somewhat disappointing and that there are now 9,610 refugees in Hong Kong, as compared with 8,039 on 1 January 1987. Although the figure of 468 was not a quota as such, but simply the number of people who met our family reunion criteria, it has been put to me that a failure by us to meet what is perceived by others to be a commitment to accept 468 refugees could seriously damage our efforts to persuade other countries to be more helpful and would undoubtedly undermine our credibility. I am, moreover, mindful of the effect which an apparent failure to play our part would have on our relations with the Hong Kong Government at what is already a very difficult time.

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Against this background I have come to the conclusion that it would be right for us to seek to make up the shortfall. There are a number of ways in which this might be done. One proposal is that we should turn the 468 into a general quota and accept people coming for training, for example, rather than insisting on family ties. Another suggestion, which was put to Simon Glenarthur on his recent visit to the Colony, is that we should agree to take some of the 130 or so refugees who have previously refused offers of resettlement in the United Kingdom. The difficulty with both of these proposals, as I see it, is that they would involve extending the present criteria and therefore take us clearly beyond the policy previously agreed. The "UK refusals" are people who met earlier criteria but who, for various reasons, decided that they did not after all wish to settle in the United Kingdom. If any of them had met the present family reunion criteria they would have been included in the original 468. As for the suggestion of a general quota, this would go completely against the view which we have consistently taken that the existence of a quota was likely to act as a "pull factor" and encourage purely economic migrants to try their luck.

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