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THETIMES
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A TEST FOR HANOI
This week the first Vietnamese left Hong Kong under the repatriation regulations introduced last year. The Crown colony has been ferociously criticized for the new restrictions, which remove from Vietnamese "boatpeople" the automatic right to refugee status.
It has been argued, most recently on the opposite page by a former employee of the United Nations High Commission for Refu- gees, that anyone who finds life so intolerable that they are prepared, against all the odds, to leave the country of his birth should be offered asylum. These are fine ideals. There should be no illusions about the injustices of everyday life in Vietnam. In practice, however, such ideals are unworkable in crowded Hong Kong. Many Vietnamese emigrants have set sail towards Hong Kong because of its relatively liberal policy towards refugees hitherto and its high living standards. It had been hoped that the new regulations alone might be a deterrent. But the arrival of more than 11,000 people after the June deadline showed otherwise.
It had also been hoped that the threat of repatriation, with its adverse publicity, would encourage Western countries to accept more Vietnamese refugees. But, although Britain and some other countries have announced large percentage increases, the numbers remain small compared with the 26,000 Vietnamese now in Hong Kong.
In these circumstances it is unrealistic to
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expect Hong Kong, with a total population of fewer than six million, to absorb so many people. Traditional hostility between Chinese and Vietnamese, and the tough attitude shown by the Hong Kong authorities towards would- be refugees from mainland China, also make large-scale resettlement within Hong Kong a major political risk.
Repatriation is probably the only solution. The UNHCR definition of a refugee has its rough edges. It is sometimes unfair - though it is to be hoped that officials err as far as possible on the side of generosity — but it is accepted worldwide.
While those arriving from Vietnam today have suffered considerable hardship, most have not been persecuted for their beliefs or for their race. They are not exiles from the conquered South, nor are they ethnic Chinese sent into enforced re-education.
Among them will be some who have suffered for their opposition to communism. These should qualify for resettlement as refugees. Under UNHCR terms, they will.
The first departures are a test for Hanoi. They offer Vietnam a chance to show that it can behave like a civilized country. Its treatment of returning emigrants will not only affect the numbers prepared to return in future, it will also determine whether Hanoi can win sufficient trust abroad to warrant Western assistance once its troops have left Cambodia.
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