TNAG-2071-FCO40-2949-Vietnamese-boat-people-1990 — Page 21

CODE

18-77

IN CONFIDENCE

Reference

Ms Harper SHAD

VIETNAMESE BOAT PEOPLE

HKB

243/24

RECEIVES IN RE

મ

JES

04MAY 1990

1. I was most grateful for the briefing you and Charles Haswell gave me before I attended the Japanese seminar on 'Political Economy of the Asia-Pacific' at Hakone on 24-25 March. Although neither this nor any other Vietnamese or Hong Kong-related issue came up in plenary at the conference, I did have useful opportunities to draw on your material in the margins. The seminar was attended in part by Yukio Sato, head of the Japanese MFA's Planning Staff - equivalent and previously Consul-General in Hong Kong, who continues to take a keen interest in UK/Japan cooperation on Hong Kong related questions. He told me he had produced a paper specifically on this for a forthcoming (or very recent?) academic meeting in Edinburgh. He had personally fought for the Japanese grant of money to the Philippines holding centre and to the costs of VBP management in Hong Kong. He was now putting forward ideas of Japanese funding for vocational training or re-training schemes on Vietnamese soil which would give an attractive prospect to returning non-refugees and help to guarantee their welfare. He though such a scheme could be defended as humanitarian and non-political and might thus escape any more general block on aid to Vietnam. I encouraged him, of course, in his general line of thinking (I did not know if FCO had heard of or agreed with his specific re-training idea) but added that almost the best thing he could do now was to help persuade the Americans to see things the same way. Their hang-up over voluntary repatriation was missing the point entirely. Sato agreed, and later during the Conference I saw him buttonholing one of the Senior US participants, Harry Harding from Brookings (who was probably receptive judging by his sensible views on other things but belongs to the Democrat camp). Sato arranged to send Harding a copy of his Edinburgh paper.

2. I also went over the factual ground on the Hong Kong VBP problem with members of the seminar's host organisation: the Japanese Institute for for International Relations. A US graduate seconded to the Institute, Sheila Smith, seemed particularly sympathetic and so I left her a copy of the Background Brief, which she promised to draw to her Japanese bosses' attention.

3. I had a few opportunities in marginal discussions to argue on the need to solve the VBP problem by getting Hanoi to take its proper responsibilities before Vietnam could be accepted back into the regional fold or international aid restored. As one might expect the ASEAN representatives

CYMACA

IN CONFIDENCE

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