From the Secretary of State
HKK 243/5
НКД
9%
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
ELIN N
R
15 March, 1985
Dur Denis
SH
PA
凸
Letn
26 15/3
Thank you for your letter of 7 March enclosing a copy of a petition from "Refugee Action" about the Vietnamese refugee problem in Hong Kong.
The refugees in closed centres to whom you refer
constitute just over half of the present total of
11,700. The rest arrived before the introduction
of the closed centre policy and are accommodated in open centres. It may be helpful if I provide some general background information about the refugee
situation in Hong Kong, and in particular about the closed centre policy. Hong Kong has shouldered an
enormous refugee burden in recent years. More
than half a million people have left Vietnam by
boat since 1975 and of these over 100,000 have
arrived in Hong Kong. Although it is one of the
most densely populated places in the world, Hong Kong has turned none away: all have been given temporary asylum pending resettlement. Hong Kong has also accepted 14,500 displaced Indo-Chinese
for permanent settlement. For the first few years
the rate of resettlement from the refuggee centres
in Hong Kong was satisfactory but by 1982 it had
fallen considerably, while large numbers of boat people
continued to arrive. As a result the number in
Hong Kong began to rise and their prospects of
resettlement grew worse.
The Rt Hon Denis Healey CH MBE MP
/The