j
нак
Hax 040/15
Grill:55
рас
13.44049/15.
ん
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN HONG KONG
HKBAA
(17)
Our Contributai to Indo-China
brief, for PM's visit to
Asia. Taken down
hy
mr.
leets to Mr. Nasty SEAD 92873
1. Hong Kong has a population of 11,900 Vietnamese Refugees, the largest Vietnamese Refugee population in the region.
2.
Since
1975, refugees from Vietnam have been arriving in Hong Kong. The influx reached its peak in 1979, and fell sharply after
the Geneva Conference on Refugees and Displaced Persons from
Indo-China in July of that year, but arrivals since then have
continued to be substantial. No Vietnamese refugee boat has been
turned away: all arrivals have been given temporary asylum and
accommodated
in camps to await resettlement elsewhere.
Nearly
100,000 have been resettled, including 60,000 to the USA and 12,000
to the UK.
Hong Kong, despite enormous immigration pressure from China (nearly half a million immigrants since the late 1970s), has itself managed to absorb 14,500 displaced Indo-Chinese (mostly from Veitnam) since 1975.
3.
increased.
In
Since 1982, the resettlement rate has fallen dramatically and with the continuing flow of
of new
new arrivals the refugee population has
1982 the Hong Kong Government initiated a new policy to discourage the flow from Vietnam by placing all new arrivals in closed centres, which they cannot leave, and where opportunities for
paid employement are very limited.
The staff of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees have full access to these centres, and
UNHCR contributes to their running costs. The policy has had some
effect on the flow of arrivals into Hong Kong: the rate of new
1983 and in 1984, and in each case the rate of
decline was faster than that experienced elsewhere in the region.
arrivals declined
in