CONFIDENTIAL
SAVING TELEGRAM
10
SY BAG
PROMA HANOI
TIAL
CONFICATIAL
TOPCO TELNO 4 SAVING OF 27 OCTOBER 1978
Z170 SAVING HONG KONG, PEKING, WASHINGTON, SINGAPORE, KUALA LUMPUR, BANGKOK, JAKARTA, UKMIS NEW YORK
BONE REFUGEES FROM VIETNAM
1.
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When the current monsoon weather passes, it is likely that there will be a
considerable increase in the number of people attempting to leave Vietnam in small
boats.
2.
Reasons for this are
(a) many Vietnamese and ethnic Chinese traders in the south had
+
hoped that after the initial severe effect of the abolition
2'
of capitalist trade in March and the unification of the currency
in May, Vietnamese authorities would relax and traders would
manage with the aid of much bribery to stay in business. This
has proved largely illusory.
conditions which allowed them to carry on trading from 1975 to
early 1978 will not return;
They now realise that the political
(o) the economic situation in the south is steadily deteriorating and
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the process has been accelerated by the effects of the recent
se rere flooding in the Mekong Delta. It is apparent,
particularly to the traders of Ho Chi Minh City and Cholon, that
life is going to get even harder;
(c) the continuing war on the Cambodian border, in which China is
involved, has led ethnic Chinese to fear increased discrimination
and persecution.
Such fears played a major part in the mass
exodus of ethnic Chinese earlier this year. Many ethnic Chinese
/and