HKK 341/1
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY MO. 51 1 5 MAY 1978
DESY OFFICER
K.
TRY
233-4483
INDEX
PA
ction Taxon?
ir K J Campbell 20 Arbutus Drive Coombe Dingle Bristol 9
12 May 1978
49) PA
44
Thank you for your letter of 30 April to the Prime Minister, to which I have been asked to reply.
Hong Kong is a very small territory with few natural resources and since 1946 it has had to cope with a rapida increasing population. Lome control must therefore be exercised over the numbers of people wishing to enter and live in liong Kong, not only from China but from all over the world, so that the already hard-pressed services such as housing, health and education are not further over burdened.
People wishing to enter Hong Kong from China require exit visas from the Chinese authorities. early 200,000 people have entered Hong Kong in this way in the past 6 years, and it would be difficult for Hong Kong to accept immigrants at a faster rate. Some Chinese try to enter ong Kong illegally across the land frontier or by sca. The normal policy when any are caught doing this is to return them to China (where, we understand they are not harshly treated) but all would-be immigrants are first interviewed by the ong Kong immigration authorities, and if there are strong humanitarian or other reasons for allowing them to stay, they are not repatriated.
I should perhaps emphasise that none of those repatriated have claimed to be refugees, in the sense that they were fleeing from persecution in their own country. The vast majority of them were attracted to Hong Kong by what they believed to be the greater material prosperity of the territory.
MJ Upton
Hong Kong and General Dept