PROGRESS IN IMPLEMENTING THE SINO-BRITISH JOINT DECLARATION OF 1984
ON HONG KONG (FCO/FAC/3/89)
SUBMITTED BY THE HONG KONG GOVERNMENT
VIETNAMESE BOAT PEOPLE
Background
1.
Between 1975 and the end of February 1989, 135,038 Vietnamese
boat people arrived in Hong Kong. During the same period, 116, 225
were resettled overseas.
2.
It was
At the 1979 United Nations sponsored Geneva conference on
Refugees and Displaced Persons in South-East Asia, the international
community endorsed a package of measures which was designed to share
the burden imposed by uncontrolled emigration from Vietnam.
agreed that all Vietnamese boat people arriving in the region should
be treated as refugees. Hong Kong and other places in the region
would provide first asylum for them (ie allow them to land
temporarily); the developed countries would provide permanent
resettlement places. Vietnam, for its part, would no longer
encourage illegal departures.
3. Initially this policy worked well. Arrivals in Hong Kong dropped from 68,748 in 1979 to 6,788 in 1980. In 1981 and the early
part of 1982, however, they began to increase again. In July 1982,
the Hong Kong Government introduced a new policy of its own. All
new arrivals were accommodated in closed centres, which they were not allowed to leave except in exceptional circumstances, while
awaiting resettlement. This had the desired deterrent effect. By
the end of 1985, the residual population in Hong Kong had declined
to 9,443.
Introduction of new policy
4.
But the number of arrivals increased in 1986 and then again
(by 65%) in 1987, when the rate of resettlement fell by 42%. It
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