TNAG-1066-FCO40-1316-Human-rights-in-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 216

E/CN.4/1503

Annex II page 33

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101. Progress in the development of industry had already been slower than foreseen, due in some degree to shortages of technol- ogy and foreign exchange but also to earlier flights of qualified manpower. Underqualified cadres in key managerial and technical positions could not be expected to run their jobs with maximum efficiency. The cumulative results of all these adverse factors would be a per capita income of no more than $ 140 and a poor nutrition level for the majority of citizens. Neither was this all: the economy was to come under further stress as a result of border wars with the People's Republic of China and Democratic Kampuchea.

102. The history of Chinese migration into Viet Nam and the problems connected with their status are too long to enter into here. Suffice it to say that there was a community of between two and three hundred thousand ethnic Chinese in the north and of well over a million in the south, established for countless generations. The citizenship question and the problems of Kampuchea accounted for rising tension between the Governments in Beijing and Hanoi which the confiscation of Chinese ("Hoa") businesses in March 1978 did nothing to allay.

103. The confiscation of businesses, fears of a Sino-Vietnamese war and an increasing sense of isolation instilled by measures to eliminate their own schools and community centres

centres gave the Chinese community several reasons to think of leaving. Between

160 000 and 170 000 people crossed into the People's Republic before Beijing closed the borders on 12 July 1978, while tens of thousands prepared to leave the southern delta by sea. The sea exodus continued and reached dramatic proportions in ensuing months, accompanied by reports that

that the Vietnamese authorities were organizing the exodus a charge emphatically denied by Hanoi.

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104. After the China/Viet Nam border conflict, the remainder of the Chinese community in the north streamed into the People's Republic, bringing numbers up to 263 000, while the vast ma- jority of the boat refugees arriving in various countries of South East Asia and Hong Kong was of ethnic Chinese origin, including about 97 per cent of the passengers of the ocean freighters such as the "Hai Hong" and the "Tung An".

105. Indeed, reports too numerous to discount spoke of the existence of a large-scale, well-organized racket in which people wishing to leave handed over their life savings, or reportedly not less than the equivalent of two thousand dollars per head usually in gold bars, to be taken to

to be taken to a small boat and thence to sea-going vessels. It was a very lucrative activity for the organizers. Though this money was usually pocketed by corrupt elements and did not necessarily find its way directly into government coffers, an important source of hard

of hard currency for the government was undoubtedly provided by the mounting remittances coming in from Vietnamese living abroad.