CONFIDENTIAL
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3. The screening policy has not stopped the flow. last June, over 19,000 boat people have arrived in Hong Kong. So far this year (to 19 May) there have been just under 10,000 arrivals (over double the rate in 1988). But the real explosion in numbers has taken place very recently: 5,600 arrivals since the beginning of May and over 1,000 on 18 and 19 May alone. We must assume that this level of arrivals will continue throughout the summer, when weather conditions are generally favourable. If this happens, many thousands more will reach Hong Kong in the next few months.
4.
Hong Kong's capacity to accommodate new arrivals is already stretched to the limit. All the existing centres for boat people are full (indeed some would say seriously overcrowded). The Foreign Affairs Committee saw this for themselves earlier this month, and are seriously concerned. The Hong Kong authorities have been using ferries as
emergency accommodation. These too are now full. And ferries have to be evacuated when (as on 19 May) a typhoon is in the area.
5. In purely numerical terms, the crisis has not yet reached the scale of the problem Hong Kong faced in 1979, when some 70,000 had to be taken in at short notice. But
the nature of the problem now is very different.
6. First, there is no longer the reasonable expectation that most of the arrivals seeking temporary asylum in Hong Kong will leave quickly. From 1979-1982, some 80,000 boat people were resettled from Hong Kong. Now only a small percentage of the arrivals are likely to be eligible for resettlement. For the rest, Hong Kong is the end of the
road.
CONFIDENTIAL
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