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homeless. A total of 428 have arrived in the last three weeks.
If this continues it will cause difficulties in finding them
accommodation in Hong Kong, since they need to be housed
separately from VBPS. Hong Kong have raised this with NCNA and
the Embassy have called on the MFA (Peking telno 974) to ask the Chinese to take the ECVIIS back quickly. No satisfactory response has been received. The Chinese insist that they will
need to check all arrivals to find out what their residency
status in China has been. In the past this has taken at least a
year and often longer to complete. The only way to stop this
new influx is for some of the recent arrivals to be returned to
China quickly.
4.
Hong Kong now intend (Hong Kong telno 1151) to revert to the
NCNA asking them to agree that a large group of the recent arrivals be returned immediately to act as a deterrent. Legco is already questioning whether HKG is taking a sufficiently hard
line with the Chinese. Calling in the Chinese charge would show
that Ministers here are concerned about the situation and
would help to focus Chinese attention on the problem.
5. This is a worrying development, which could rapidly become another major influx of refugees. We need to act fast, before the present trickle becomes a flood. At this stage, I think
that our tone should be that we want to work together with
Peking to nip this unwelcome and unexpected development in the
bud. There is no evidence that the Central authorities have had
any hand in it (eg as a means of putting pressure on Hong Kong). But their bureaucratic system could leave Hong Kong with another long-term Vietnamese migrant problem, unless they are willing to
cooperate now.
bebeth
PF Ricketts
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