TNAG-1278-FCO40-1629-Statistics-on-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 144

布政司署

香港下亞

畢道

本署檔號 OUR REF.:

(37) in SCR 1/4/4821/79

來函檔號 YOUR REF.:

RJ F Hoare Esq

Hong Kong & General Department

Foreign & Commonwealth Office London SW1A 2AH

R+R.

IV.

Ref x M.28/2

以

2

SECURITY BRANCH

GOVERNMENT

SECRETARIAT

LOWER ALBERT ROAD

HONG KONG

26 January 1983

~Hkk 2643Z

J

S FEB 1983

î

0

X1

Dear Richard

Statistics of Vietnamese Refugees in Hong Kong

Thank you for your letter of 13 January. It's encouraging that someone is looking seriously at these figures. There are indeed discrepancies but they are simply explained. Basically the figures for "arrivals" and "departures" do not take into account births and deaths in Hong Kong or changes in status, i.e. from Vietnamese refugee to illegal immigrant from China. Thus for example in paragraph 3 of our telegram 535, A plus B minus C equals 11,852, which is (as you observe) not the same as E. If, however, you then :

(a)

(b)

흐흐

(c)

add 587 (ex-China cases transferred to UNHCR care in March and October 1982),

add 360 (births in 1982),

deduct 2 (cases subsequently identified as ex-China), and

(d) deduct 10 (deaths in 1982)

you arrive at the total at E.

2.

The same exercise should be conducted in respect of paragraph 1 of the telegram: the discrepancy between the December 1982 and January 1983 "total" figures is 478 (not 50 - a figure you may have got by taking 12,737 in paragraph 1 from 12,787 in paragraph 3, which does not compare "like" with "like", because only the latter figure excludes ex-China cases). The discrepancy of 478 is simply explained - 400 departures, 196 arrivals, 324 ex-China cases repatriated, 54 births and 4 deaths.

/ 3.