TNAG-1419-FCO40-1902-Hong-Kong-Parliamentary-Sub-Committee-on-Race-Relations-and--1985 — Page 217

and

resettlement overseas

is

1979, the

considerably since the initial influx in

rate at which refugees from Hong Kong we re being accepted for

was falling sharply. Hong Kong was therefore faced with the

propect of the camp population rising again

to the

levels of 1979/80, without any prospect of a corresponding increase in resettlement. The resultant situation would rapidly have become unmanageable. Since a refusal to allow refugee boats to enter Hong Kong was

considered unacceptable

for humanitarian reasons, the closed camp policy was the most humane measure of

deterrence that was available the Hong Kong Government. There was strong public pressure in Hong Kong to introduce such a policy for several reasons: similar policies had already been adopted by other places of asylum in the region (in s ome cases since 1979); Hong Kong already experienced acute problems as a result of the large influx of immigrants from China in recent years and the public were alarmed at the prospect of Hong Kong giving the shelter indefinitely to increasing numbers of Vietnamese; they objected to the fact that there was

an

and

"open door" policy towards the Vietnamese while Chinese illegal immigrants, with whom they had close cultural, and often family, ties were as a matter of Government policy repatriated to China (whereas since late 1979 ethnic Vietnamese, with no cultural or other links with Hong Kong, have comprised 98 percent of all arrivals in the territory from Vietnam). They did not

see why the Vietnamese should be given special treatment, especially since to an increasing extent their primary motivation for leaving their country, like that of Chinese immigrants, seemed to be economic rather than political.