HUGO
HKK, 341/1.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
51
London SWIA 2ah
? JUN 978
19 June 1978
ל
61
Thank you for your letter of 6 June enclosing one
from your constituents, the Reverend and Mrs Grist, criticizing the Hong Kong Government's policy of repatriating illegal immigrants from China.
Hong Kong is a very small territory which suffers severely from overcrowding (the population, now 4.5m., has increased seven-fold since the war).
So there has to be some
The Hong Kong
control over immigration if social services for the population as a whole are to be maintained and improved. Government permit all those who are given exit permits by the Chinese authorities to stay in Hong Kong if they wish to do so; at present such immigrants are arriving at a rate of over
50,000 a year.
The problem of "illegal" immigrants
-
those who leave
China and seek to enter Hong Kong without the approval of the
Chinese authorities is more difficult: if all those who
entered in this way were allowed to stay, the numbers would become unmanageable.
Your constituents are wrong, however, in thinking that those who are repatriated have sought political asylum in Hong Kong. Indeed, none of them are, or have claimed to be, refugees
A Morris Esq MP.,
/in the