MEMORANDUM
(Prepared in response to an inquiry from Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan on refugee movements)
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES AND HONG KONG : 1975 1981
Hong Kong's experience of the massive outflow of refugees
from Vietnam began only a few days after the fall of Saigon in April
1975: early in May, a Danish container ship arrived in the harbour with
3,743 refugees rescued in the South China Sea. All were landed in
Hong Kong until they could be resettled overseas.
resettlement was not completed till mid-1978.
This process of
2.
1976 and 1977 showed a relative lull in the direct
arrival problem, with less than 1,200 refugees arriving here in small
boats. But during this period Hong Kong took in about 9,000 displaced
people and refugees from Indo-China, who had either overstayed or entered
Illegally after changes of Government in South Vietnam, Cambodia aná
Laos.
Charter flights brought from Vietnam another 4,522 people who
had never been resident in Hong Kong, but who had close family ties with
Hong Kong residents. Eventually, those given refuge in Hong Kong in
these ways totalled more than 14,000.
3.
In 1978 the inflow of refugees in small boats increased
to a total of 6,609; and by the second half of that year it was clear
that Vietnam's authorities were prepared to "export", as unassimilable
politically and economically, a large proportion of the country's
Chinese population. Reports began to reach Hong Kong that people of
Chinese ethnic origin throughout Vietnam, who had already been reduced
to the status of second-class citizens through dismissal from jobs,
/suppression