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[Mr. Richard Luce]
Refugees (Hong Kong)
24 MAY 1985
some extent. I do not deny for a moment that conditions in the closed camps are unsatisfactory. I have said on several occasions that the situation is unsatisfactory and we want to end it as soon as possible. However, we must see the issue against the reality of the background not only of Hong Kong's problems—which are major, as the hon. Gentleman acknowledged but of the United Kingdom's problems. To a considerable extent, the Select Committee acknowledged and investigated those problems.
I also welcomed the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims). My hon. Friend, too, spoke with strong feeling and on a personal basis. The fact that his son has worked in one of the camps adds weight to what he had to say.
The matter must be seen against the background of the Select Committee's report. The Government are studying the report with great care. The hon. Gentleman will not expect me to reply to those recommendations in an Adjournment debate-although he expressed the hope that I might. The Government are considering the recommendations with the greatest care and intend to reply as soon as possible. We are fully aware that it is a matter of urgency. I cannot therefore reply directly to the hon. Gentleman's challenge to say what the Government's reaction is to the report. However, I can pick up many of the points that the hon. Gentleman has made.
It would be wrong to examine the issue of the closed camps in Hong Kong without considering their root cause. Clearly, the problem derives from conditions in Vietnam, which are clearly totally and utterly oppressive. Vietnam has the third largest army in the world. It occupies another country-Cambodia. It has a terrible record on human rights; thousands of people are kept in re-education camps without charge or trial for years on end. Over a million refugees have left the country since 1975, and in the past year no fewer than 25,000 Vietnamese have fled by boat to various parts of the world. Those figures are a massive condemnation of what is happening in Vietnam today. That flow of refugees will stop only when that country adopts a more civilised policy towards human beings who live there. With the rest of the internatonal community, we shall do what we can to persuade Vietnamese to improve their human rights policy.
I am glad that the hon. Member for Yeovil and my hon. Friend paid tribute to Hong Kong's achievements in this field. Hong Kong has given temporary asylum to over 100,000 refugees since 1975. In 1979, at the height of the crisis, over 68,000 boat people arrived in Hong Kong. None have been turned away. At his press conference in Hong Kong on 14 May, the United Nations High Commissioner, Mr. Hartling, said
"We are very grateful to Hong Kong- -to the authorities, the Government here and to the people because Hong Kong has given asylum and never, never refused to give asylum to refugees coming here and never forced them back against their will, and treated them well, but of course, they would like as we would like to see a solution—a durable solution, for these refugees." The Government certainly share Mr. Hartling's views.
The closed camps are one of the sad aspects of the Indo- Chinese refugee problem. In an ideal world, there would be no refugee camps, closed or open. As I said in my evidence to the Select Committee on 4 February and reiterated in the debate on 14 May, the position of having 5,600 refugees in closed camps and an equal number in
Refugees (Hong Kong)
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open camps is such that no Minister can say that it i satisfactory or desirable. It is most certainly not. Refuge. situations are certainly not ideal. How can they be? Ther‹ is no perfect solution. However, we must be realistic. I as} the House to try to understand the Hong Kong Government's position on the matter, and to see the position within the special geographical and politica circumstances of the territory.
Moreover, I must ask the hon. Gentleman to take into account factor, which I believe is of importance. Other countries in the region, for example Thailand and the Philippines, have, reluctantly, found it necessary to run restricted camps of the same kind as the camps that we described in Hong Kong as closed camps in which, in the same way, the inhabitants are, regrettably, not free to move as they wish, and not free to work. Therefore, we must acknowledge that other countries are faced with a similar problem. Hong Kong is not the only country that has to grapple with it.
What are the reasons for the closed camps? Doubts have been expressed as to whether Hong Kong was justified in introducing the closed camp policy. There is no doubt in my mind about that because the figures speak for themselves. In July 1982, the month when the policy was introduced, arrivals reached their highest level for three years. Resettlement possibilities were diminishing sharply. The Hong Kong Government were faced with the prospect of the numbers in the camps rising to unmanageable levels, as they had done in 1979.
It is important to understand why that was particularly alarming for Hong Kong. The hon. Gentleman fully understands it, but I should like to repeat the reason. Hong Kong is one of the most crowded places in the world. It has a population of over 5 million in a territory of only 400 sq miles, much of it barren hillside and rocky islets. Its population density is 20 times that of the United Kingdom. It has acute problems resulting from the large influx of immigrants from China in recent years. It continues to absorb large numbers of legal immigrants from China— 27,700 in 1984. Illegal immigrants from China, however, are repatriated, although they often have family and cultural ties with the people of Hong Kong. That is an important point for the people of Hong Kong.
That is the context in which the people of Hong Kong see the Vietnamese problem. They therefore find it difficult to accept that the Vietnamese should be given what they regard as special treatment by being allowed to remain in the territory while awaiting resettlement. The closed camp policy was therefore introduced, and has been maintained with the full support of the people of Hong Kong. They felt that that was the only way to try to discourage the Vietnamese from setting out for Hong Kong.
The strength of Hong Kong feeling on the issue was demonstrated in the Adjournment debate of the Hong Kong Legislative Council on 15 May, as the hon. Gentleman may have noticed. A member of the council, Mrs. Selina Chow, said:
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"The closed camp policy .came into force in July 1982 Our treatment of Vietnamese refugees at the time was not in line with either policies of our other Asian countries, most of which had been operating closed camps. In the face of the only realistic options open to Hong Kong at the time regarding Vietnamese refugees, i.e. repatriation, refusal to land and the closed camps, the last was certainly the least inhumane”. Those are the comments of a very distinguished member of the Legislative Council.
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