Y
TIMAAJ
CONFIDENTIAL
MR MAUDE'S VISIT TO HONG KONG, 17-19 SEPTEMBER
BACKGROUND BRIEF (b):
VIETNAMESE BOAT PEOPLE
Historical Background to the Present Position
1. Since the fall of Saigon in 1975 vast numbers of people have left Vietnam by boat. Many have arrived in Hong Kong, which has
provided temporary refuge to over 150,000 people (of whom about 100,000 have been resettled in the West). The first crisis occurred
in 1979, when the exodus began to reach unmanageable proportions,
and the countries of first asylum in the region began pushing boat people off. For this reason, and particularly because of the pressure on Hong Kong, the United Kingdom took the initiative in calling for the first International Conference on Indo Chinese Refugees to be held at Geneva. As a result of that Conference, the countries in the region agreed to give first asylum to all boat people arriving on their shores; and the Western countries agreed to resettle them as refugees. Hundreds of thousands of boat people
were resettled after 1979 (the UK has taken about 20,000, mostly
from Hong Kong).
2.
Initially the arrangements worked reasonably well and in the early to mid 1980s the boat people populations in Hong Kong and elsewhere steadily diminished, as resettlement exceeded new
arrivals. But from 1985 the situation deteriorated as arrivals
surged to a level which far exceeded the capacity of resettlement
countries to take people in.
3. It was also clear that by the mid to late '80s the outflow of people was changing in character. The earlier exodus consisted of many people associated with the vanquished regime of South Vietnam. There were also many ethnic Chinese escaping racial descrimination and persecution. But by 1987/88 a large proportion (over 90%) of those who were arriving in Hong Kong were peasants and fishermen. from the northern and central part of the country, who were leaving
for economic reasons rather than political ones.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.