channels and urging them to make suitable amendments so that the Basic Law will command confidence in Hong Kong.
Representative Government
Following the events in early June in China, there has been growing pressure in Hong Kong for a faster pace of development towards representative Government than was set out in the 1988 Hong Kong Government White Paper which made provision for 10 directly elected seats in 1991. The unofficial (ie non-Government) Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils (OMELCO) proposed on 27 July 1989 that one third of the Legislative Council should be directly elected. in 1991 that there should be no less than 50% directly elected
members by 1995. These proposals go further than the present draft of the Basic Law, which provides for 27% directly elected seats in
Hong Kong's Legislation Council in 1997. The British Government has
already made clear that the changes currently proposed for 1991 will need to be re-examined and that the provisions of the draft Basic
Law on constitutionsl arrangements after 1997 will also need full
reappraisal.
Vietnamese Boat People
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Recent events in China have overshadowed Hong Kong's most immediate practical problem how to cope with the large numbers of boat
people who have found shelter there. Since 1975, over 160,000 Vietnamese have been given temporary asylum in Hong Kong. Some 110,000 have been resettled, around 62,000 to the USA and over
13,000 to the UK Since 1987 there has been a renewed and dramatic
increase in the number of people leaving Vietnam: over 18,000 arrived in Hong Kong in 1988 and the figure for 1989 is now
approaching 30,000. But whereas the early boat people were fleeing political persecution from the Hanoi regime, those of recent years
have been predominantly farmers and fishermen from the North,
leaving in search of a better life.
Since June 1988 new arrivals in Hong Kong have been screened to
determine whether they are refugees or simply economic migrants. The camp population in Hong Kong now stands at over 55,000, of whom