SECRET
The quota for legal immigration from the neighbouring Kwantung Province
is 50 per day. Strict measures are taken against illegal immigration
from China, but because of the Colony's geographical situation it is
impossible to maintain complete control. Illegal immigration is now
running at about the rate of 3-4,000 a year.
Illegal immigrants who are intercepted are returned to China in
accordance with normal international practice, when enquiries have failed
4.
The
to reveal any good reason why they should not be so returned.
Hong Kong Government has avoided giving a public assurance of asylum
because of the resultant difficulties if large numbers of would-be
immigrants were to claim it. In practice however asylum is granted in
those rare cases where there is reason to believe that the immigrant's
life or liberty might be in danger if he were to be returned.
5. A small number of Members of Parliament have taken an interest in
the situation mainly as the result of correspondence from Free China Relief
Association of Taiwan, in which the Association have represented
Hong Kong's immigration controls as offending Article 14 of the
Declaration of Human Rights (which deals with political asylum), and
asserted that arrangements should be made to send intercepted immigrants
on to Taiwan. The extravagant terms of the Association's letters make
it very clear that they are attempting to make political capital out of
the situation. We have no evidence that the Chinese Nationalists would
be prepared to grant the necessary visas for the immigrants to enter
Taiwan, and any arrangement of this kind with the Nationalists would
certainly provoke a strong reaction from the Chinese Communist Government.
6. The 'Cultural Revolution in China, unlike previous periods of
unrest, has not, so far, produced any noticeable rise in the numbers of
Chinese attempting to enter Hong Kong. A great influx, such as occurred
in 1962 when some 200,000 persons crossed the land frontier is thought
unlikely unless the Chinese authorities lose control. A new problem
will however arise if prominent officials on the losing side of the
dynastic struggle that is taking place attempt to come out of China
through Hong Kong.
/F. PUBLIC FINANCE
SECRET