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Hong Kong has accepted all refugees who have sought asylum here. No one has been turned away. But the basic solution to the Vietnamese refugee problem is to speedily move these people from a place of asylum to countries of permanent resettlement. Nearly 103,000 have been resettled from Hong Kong, with America taking 60,000; Canada taking 16,500; the United Kingdom taking 12,000 and Australia taking 4,500.
However, only America, Canada and Australia have ongoing resettlement programmes from Hong Kong, taking 100, 50 and 50 per month, respectively. Although the United Kingdom's early record was good, it took only 240 refugees from Hong Kong in 1982, 101 in 1983 and a disappointing 88 last year. Out of
this 88, 27 were rescued by British ships, which the UK was obliged to take. Therefore, the United Kingdom took only 61 refugees voluntarily from Hong Kong. In the same year, Finland took 54 refugees from Hong Kong!
Hong Kong has not only been a country of first
asylum. We have absorbed 14,500 displaced people from Indo-China since 1975, mostly between 1975 and 1979. Hong Kong's crowded environment and immense immigration pressures do not allow us to absorb more. For example, the United Kingdom has a population density of 230 persons per square kilometre; the USA has a density of 22 per square kilometre; Hong Kong has an average figure of 5,000 and, in parts of Sham Shui Po, the figure soars to 165,000 persons per square kilometre. Our population has been increased by 600,000 immigrants from China over the past ten years, which represents a population increase
of 12%.
Faced with a continuing high rate of arrivals and rapidly diminishing resettlement opportunities, the Hong Kong Government reluctantly followed other countries in the region
and introduced closed centres.
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