At an International Conference in Geneva in June, all countries of
first asylum agreed to introduce screening, thus ending the era of
automatic resettlement. Resettlement countries pledged enough
places over the next three years for all the Vietnamese refugees in
the South east Asian Region. It was agreed that all those screened
out, as economic migrants, should return to Vietnam. But there
remains the problem of how to achieve this in practice. The Geneva
Conference agreed that a voluntary programme should be tried in the
first instance, but results from Hong Kong are so far disappointing,
with only 150 people having returned so far. We have been
negotiating with the Vietnamese to return those non-refugees who,
while not voluntary, would not resist repatriation, and we hope to
begin a programme of returns soon, with adequate safeguards of
humane treatment.
JOINT LIAISON GROUP
Annex II to the Joint Declaration provides for the establishment of
the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group, describes in detail its terms
of reference and lays down in broad terms the agenda for the group
up to 1997. The Joint Liaison Group meets three times a year
alternating between Peking, London and Hong Kong. The first plenary
meeting was held in July 1985; in all there have been twelve
meetings so far. The next plenary meeting of the Joint Liaison
Group, which was to have taken place in London on 18-21 July, was
postponed as one of the measures announced by Sir Geoffrey Howe
following the Tiananmen Square massacre. Under the Joint
Declaration, there have to be three JLG meetings a year. The
Foreign Secretary therefore proposed to his Chinese opposite number
on 30 July that the next plenary meeting should take place in London
at the end of September.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.