DSR 11C (Revised 5/87)
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Vietnamese Boat People
39.
Under the terms of the agreement reached at the
Geneva Conference on Indo Chinese refugees in 1979, Hong
Kong and a number of countries in the region have
provided temporary shelter to all boat people arriving
from Vietnam, on the understanding that they would
eventually be resettled by the international community.
Since 1975 some 133,000 boat people have arrived in Hong
Kong from Vietnam, of whom over 100,000 have been
resettled abroad. In the years immediately after the
Geneva Conference, the number of boat people remaining in
Hong Kong steadily diminished. But in recent years the
trend was reversed and the arrangements agreed at that
Conference have come under increasing strain. From 1987
a new exodus began, while the rate of resettlement fell.
In 1988, 18,000 boat people arrived in Hong Kong:
resettlement amounted to 2,700.
40.
During the past few years the pattern of arrivals
in Hong Kong has also changed.
About 70 per cent of
recent arrivals are from the northern part of Vietnam.
The great majority are farmers and fishermen.
Many of
the resettlement countries have raised doubts about
whether such people are in fact genuine refugees or
simply economic migrants.
41.
These changing circumstances led to the Hong Kong
Government, with the full support of the British
Government, to alter their approach to the granting of