TNAG-2169-FCO40-3106-House-of-Commons-Foreign-Affairs-Committee-inquiry-into-Hong-1990 — Page 29

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19.

Mr Shore

Minister, can you just help us on a point of explanation.

have already given us ample evidence of the very welcome and marked

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You

reduction of new arrivals in Hong Kong from Vietnam the really striking

reduction in the first few months of this year but you have not said

anything about the causes of this. Is it because of changes in the

practices, if you like, a greater wariness by the Vietnam Government

itself? Is it due to changes in practices of the Chinese Government

through whose territories most of these North Vietnamese refugees last year

came, or are there other reasons?

(Mr Maude) I think it is a combination of a number of factors. I

think one very important one is the message that was sent, the signal that

was sent by our decision last December to return the first planeload of 51

non-voluntary repatriants. That sent a very clear and stark signal,

especially to North Vietnam, where the fall-off in numbers has been

sharpest, that there was no point in coming because for those who were not

refugees all it meant was a spell in a detention centre and the return trip

to Vietnam. So that, I think, played an important part in stemming the

flow. I think also the development of a regular flow of voluntary

repatriants has helped because there has been a succession of people, a

sustained flow going back into the communities and able to spread the word

there that the conditions in the Hong Kong camps, though I believe

remarkably good in the circumstances, are not ideal and that there is, in

fact, no prospect for those who are not refugees of any resettlement in the

West. I think there has also been a good information campaign run by the

Vietnamese authorities and by others in Vietnam to spread this message more

widely. It has been done much more in the North than in the South, which

is one reason why the flow may be much greater from the South than from the

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