ENG-1979 — Page 19

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THE BOAT REFUGEES FROM VIETNAM

Pressures and Progress Following World War II, Chinese civilians who had moved from Hong Kong to China returned and with them many other migrants. The population was estimated to be 1.5 million in 1946; today it is about five million, having increased more than threefold.

While the flow of people into Hong Kong has been a continuous movement, at least three large surges of immigration can be identified. The first took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s – a period of major change and upheaval which included the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The second surge in 1962 was connected, in part, with serious economic and agricultural problems being experienced in China.

A third wave of immigration, which started in 1978, is still continuing. Although we may be too close to the process to define its causes, among the factors which have encouraged migration have been recent changes in China that have made it easier for many of its citizens to travel to Hong Kong or to join relatives overseas. Another factor, undoubtedly, has been the attraction of the outward and visible results of a sustained and systematic effort in Hong Kong over the last 10 years, which has resulted in an improved standard-of-living and quality of life.

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In dealing with such vast movements of people, all figures are necessarily guesses, but the first two surges of immigration may have brought in more than a million people. As for the third, continuing wave, the estimate is that at least one-quarter of a million people from China - both legal and illegal immigrants - have settled in Hong Kong in the past two years.

In trying to cope with influxes of this magnitude, the administration of a place, so small and so devoid of natural resources as Hong Kong, might be forgiven for praying for a miracle. For the territory, regarded as a small, overcrowded place even in 1946, covers a mere 1,059 square kilometres. One district, the built-up area of Mong Kok in Kowloon, has a population density of 144,000 people to the square kilometre and is reckoned to be the most crowded urban centre in the world. The overall density is 4,487 people per square kilometre, compared with 33 in Malaysia and 22 in the United States. On Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon and Tsuen Wan, where most of the population lives, the ratio is 25,400 people per square kilometre. Most of the territory's 236 islands are precipitously hilly or barren, or both.

Hong Kong's basic resources remain what they have been from the outset: a splendid natural harbour and an industrious and inventive people.

At one cardinal stage in Hong Kong's fortunes in the past three decades, the ingenuity of the people came to the fore to circumvent the constraints placed by outside events on the role of the harbour. This was in the early 1950s when the side-effects of the Korean War brought to a halt Hong Kong's function as an entrepôt for trade with China. What followed was the historic diversion into manufacturing which set Hong Kong on its path as a provider of textiles and clothing, toys, and a variety of electronic and plastic goods to many parts of the world.

It is the resourcefulness, determination and energy which are so apparent in Hong Kong that have been the hallmarks of collective efforts over the years to provide not only basic shelter, food, water and the chance of work for successive waves of immigrants, but also schools, hospitals, better labour conditions, aid for the aged and needy, and scope for recreation and cultural enjoyment. However, most important of all these efforts and pro- grammes has been the provision of public housing.

The start of public housing in Hong Kong derived from that first big surge in immigration in the late 1940s and early 1950s. On Christmas Day, 1953, fire destroyed the shanty