it was consistent with the best standards of British administration to which they are accustomed, a recognition of our responsibility to the last of our major colonies, a colony which, uniquely cannot achieve indepenence but must revert to Chinese rule in 1997. I assured people that the Government were fully committed to the package.
The
The nationality package was one of three main decisions
affecting Hong Kong which we have had to take. second was on the repatriation of Vietnamese boat people. No-one in Hong Kong involved in the involuntary repatriation of Vietnamese boat people takes satisfaction
in what had to be done. But they do take satisfaction in
the way it was done. Having seen the camps for myself, I
am more than ever convinced that return to Vietnam in
carefully controlled conditions is preferable to camp life with no hope of resettlement elsewhere. Hong Kong has paid a high price for its principled policy of first asylum. We cannot expect them to receive this year the same number of boat people over 50,000 - that they received last year.
There is nowhere for those boat
people to go. The policy of mandatory repatriation is therefore the right one. I see no alternative to it and
to rapid turn-around for new arrivals. I am grateful to my rt hon friend the member for Aylesbury and the noble Ld Lord Ennals, for their thorough and expert report on the first 51 to go back. I would welcome monitoring by
the UNHCR and other agencies for future returnees.
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Mr Speaker, no-one in Hong Kong disputes the validity of the Joint Declaration as the basis for Hong Kong's future after 1997. It is the reality, not the concept of one country two systems which was undermined by the events of
last June. But the Chinese Government have reaffirmed
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