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28
22 March 1989]
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE
RT HON SIR GEOFFREY HOWE, QC, MR ROBIN MCLAREN, CMG, and Mr Alan Paul
Mr Lester
61. As we understand it, perhaps the most urgent current problem in Hong Kong is the prob- lem of the Vietnamese boat people and the con- ditions in which they live. How confident are you of solving this problem by 1997 and do you regard 1997 as a deadline for a solution?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) We have not set a deadline. We want to resolve the problem as quickly as we can. Our intention and hope is, as I said in the House earlier this year, that we should be able to manage the problem well before 1997 but there is no deadline set in that respect.
62. Your memorandum states that the screen- ing of boat people which was introduced on 16 June last year is approved by UNHCR. Was this approved in advance of its implementation?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) I think it was virtually con- temporary, as I recollect it.
63. Simultaneously? (Sir Geoffrey Howe) Yes.
64. According to the Hong Kong Government memorandum, between June 1988 and March 1989 1,008 people have been screened and 10,005 are still waiting. At that rate the screening process alone could take more than seven years, so do you have plans to speed it up without decreasing the very vital ability of the process to recognise a genuine refugee?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) As I understand it, the pro- cess obviously started off slowly with limited resources and limited experience. The expectation is that it will speed up, as indeed it has been doing, as the procedures have become well established and understood. The Governor may be able to tell you more precisely the tempo of that but it is certainly getting faster.
65. Are you surprised that only 84 percent out of 1,088 so far screened have been granted refugee status?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) No, I think that is about the conclusion one would have expected because the people who began coming in at the end of 1987 and through 1988 were different from those who had come before and they were not so to speak fulfilling obvious refugee criteria. They were farmers, fishermen, not fleeing from persecution but looking for a better economic prospect. That is why the problem developed to such a different form with this fresh upsurge.
Mr Lester: This is not the place to pursue how we improve the economic prospects of Vietnam, so I am happy to leave it there.
Mr Wells
66. Could I ask you one further question, Sec- retary of State? Some voluntary repatriation has taken place and there are different stories in the press and on the radio in this country as to how they were received. Some say they were received
[Continued
as it was agreed they should be received, that is to say, welcomed back and helped to resettle; others say that they were threatened and abused, rhetori- cally, on their return and that retribution for their exit was promised. Can you tell us what you expect in the future and what arrangements have you been able to make with UNHCR and the Vietnamese Government?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) As you know, the Vietnamese have assured us that all returnees will be well treated and will not face punishment, and the arrangements agreed permit the UNHCR to monitor the returnees and to ensure humanitarian treatment of those who have returned. It is on that, as it were, that we rest our position at the present time.
67. Have the Chinese made clear how they will proceed in relation to Vietnamese refugees after 1997?
that
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) The Chinese expectation certainly is that Vietnamese refugees will have returned to Vietnam by that time. We would all o) us hope over a period as long as eight years the prob lem will, in fact, be resolved in that direction, but The Chinese themselves, of course, have taken back
refugees of Vietnamese origin..
68. And Chinese nationality?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) And, of course, Chinese nationality, yes.
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69. Secretary of State, we have mentioned more than once this morning, both you and the Commit- tee, the great prosperity of Hong Kong and the surrounding region and the enormous potential in South China and that part of East Asia and South- East Asia. It has been put to the Committee that while we want to do our best we also want to do our best as the United Kingdom for our own business in that potentially very attractive and expanding area. Do you feel that British business interests are getting all the development and rep- resentation they need in Hong Kong up to 1997 and, indeed, thinking ahead, after 1997, or are we in some sense hamstrung in the sense that we have are having in organised the politics and we are the withdrawing organise power and, therefore, we cannot do as much on the business side as we would like?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) No, there is absolutely no foundation for that belief at all. The Hong Kong Government, of course, with the independence on which colleagues have commented, manages its own affairs and determines its own contracts and its own purveyors of goods to the Hong Kong Government, but there is no inhibition whatsoever arising from that on the commercial pursuit of commercial British interests. As you know, we have our Trade Commissioner there. The post has recently been upgraded to ambassadoriai rank. He has equal status with the Consulă General of the United States and the Japanese Consular General and is able to pursue his work as energetically as they are. The Trade Commission is, in fact, going
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