accepting boat refugees who had spent time in China. It is not
at present clear whether this applies to any shown to have crossed
from Vietnam to China by land and having been in China long enough
to be recorded as habitual residents. However, all the evidence
suggests that this type of "land crosser" constitutes a very small
number of the boat people who reach Hong Kong and Ambassador Clark
made it clear that he intended to be liberal about doubtful cases.
It may be possible to fit any refugees who are difficult for the.
US to accept into other resettlement programmes. In any event,
whether this will be much of a problem can only be established once
the refugees have been accepted by the UNHCR and have had their
case for resettlement presented to all countries offering places.
As for the problem of accommodation the essence of the crisis
as the Hong Kong authorities see it is this:
(a)
(b)
With nearly 24,000 refugees from Vietnam in Hong Kong
(978 arrived on 1 May), UNHCR have so far accepted
responsibility for 6,000. (Resettlement has averaged
724 a month from January to April 1979.)
Local UNHCR plans to increase accommodation do not
cover all refugees already in Hong Kong, nor those
expected to arrive at the rate of probably 10,000 or
more per month during the height of the South West
monsoon from May to October.
In the past 16 months Hong Kong has absorbed about 175,000
people who have entered legally or illegally from China (greater
than the outstanding number of land-cases in Thailand). It is
difficult enough tɔ expect a community under such pressure of
numbers to tolerat as generous a landing policy as Hong Kong has
-2-
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