CONFIDENTIAL
BACKGROUND NOTE
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION INTO HONG KONG FROM CHINA
1. In November 1974 an agreement was reached locally between the Hong Kong Government and the authorities of Kwangtung Province in China covering the return of illegal immigrants caught entering Hong Kong, subject to certain understandings about the way in which the policy was to be operated in practice. In returning illegal immigrants, the Hong Kong authorities would consider each case on its individual merits; the Chinese authorities would consider illegal immigrants as guilty only of a civil misdemeanour.
2. Since this policy was introduced, just over 2,300 persons have been returned to China after being apprehended trying to enter Hong Kong illegally. Full information is not available about what happens to repatriated illegal immigrants inside China. The Chinese would consider this entirely an internal matter and the Hong Kong Government have accordingly never sought formal assurances about the treatment meted out to those concerned. However, there is no reason to believe that those returned have suffered unduly harsh treatment. There are, for instance, examples of people who have been caught trying to enter Hong Kong more than once and who have been repatriated before, and assurances have been given, in confidential exchanges with Communist officials locally which cannot be mentioned publicly, that the Chinese authorities normally regard escape to Hong Kong as a civil misdemeanour calling for measures of "social education" rather than severe pubishment.
3. In the same period, 46 illegal immigrants from China arrested on entry have been allowed to remain in Hong Kong. However, there are strong arguments against making public this figure or the criteria against which individual applications are measures: a) it would limit Hong Kong's field of manoeuvre for making exceptions in individual cases in future; b) it would assist would-be illegals to produce plausible cover stories in order to gain entry; c) the Chinese, with whom the Hong Kong Government have not agreed such criteria, would be concerned lest Hong Kong were retreating from their agreement under
d) revelation of the figure of those allowed to stay in
KMT pressure;
CONFIDENTIAL
/Hong Kong
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