Conversations in Hong Kong
HEUVEL, WILLIAM J. VANDEN
A Report on the Refugees Conversations in Hong Kong By William J. vanden Heuvel This summer, not long after the British closed Hong Kong's borders and more than 60,000 Chinese were forced...
...I managed to get to friends who hid me...
...They ate the meat and returned the rice to him, asking for more...
...In previous years they went to Southeast Asia or were smuggled to America to help build railroads...
...The British make too much of this, however...
...Over 40 per cent of our population is under the age of 15, which means that our projected population figures are probably too low...
...Of course the Commonwealth nations, including England, have shown even less disposition to break the barriers which have prevented Oriental immigration...
...If they are caught hiding us, they will be arrested for "harboring illegal immigrants...
...every fourth person on this earth is Chinese...
...One of our Chinese constables was on duty at the harbor when his 13-year-old son appeared in front of him trying to break through...
...Maybe millions have to die so that millions more can live in a future that belongs to them...
...They will tell you of the refugee bodies that were washed down in the flooded Shumchun river along the border...
...The granaries of Canada and Australia are bare because of recent Chinese purchases...
...We are not about to do any of these things-yet...
...We are the only major power which is not frightened by the statistics of nuclear destruction...
...Perhaps there are some other things we can do quietly to help alleviate the human suffering...
...Hong Kong entrepreneurs take advantage of refugee labor to produce cheap goods, and nations with civilized working standards cannot meet the low cost competition...
...At one point influential men, such as Clement Attlee, felt that we should give Hong Kong back to the Chinese...
...We have tried to act with justice, charity and compassion, which is more than can be said for many of the rich Chinese who have used Hong Kong to make their fortunes and turned aside from the grief and suffering of their countrymen...
...When it serves our purposes, we will make Hong Kong a part of China again...
...Only 19 per cent of our land is inhabitable, and one-third of even our meager water supply is purchased from Communist China, where the pipes can be turned off without any notice...
...This we will not have...
...Those who might ease the burden have closed their borders, too...
...Today all ports of entry are closed to them except Hong Kong, so they emigrate here to be with relatives and friends and send food and money home to their families...
...If we are to absorb new waves of immigrants, we must have new jobs and more work...
...The illustrations are by Armand Weston...
...At one point, 50 constables faced 5,000 screaming illegal immigrants but, fortunately, no one was hurt...
...Feeding may be China's problem, but breeding is Hong Kong's...
...The anguish of those days was terrible...
...The substance of the problem is not altered by calling the Chinese "immigrants...
...We allow 50,000 to enter legally every year...
...Despite all the talk of tight border controls, we still estimated that at least 10,000 had made their way through the hills to the safe hideouts of friends or family...
...The British are the tail to the American kite, always playing their game of trying for the middle ground...
...It was not until the British closed the border in May that Americans reacted...
...Lippmann further advocates disguising the place of origin of the food, if politically necessary, by channeling it through an international agency...
...What everyone seems to have forgotten is the extraordinary restraint shown by the authorities...
...If the percentage of Chinese seeking to enter Hong Kong was to equal the percentage of Cubans who have fled to the United States, 21 million refugees would be at that barbed-wire border...
...Frankly, the British think we used the refugee crisis for our own political advantage without any real intention of giving substantive help...
...They belong to the generation the Communists trained and controlled...
...To us, 70,000 is an insignificant number...
...The fact is, then, that whatever can be done for the refugees must be done in the context of Hong Kong itself...
...More than 600,000 workers from Canton and more than two million from Shanghai are being moved to communes...
...Refugees who expressed fear of persecution for political reasons if forced to return to Communist China were allowed to stay while we examined their stories...
...We also have a security problem which Hong Kong does not have to worry about...
...They remember the old hard days of the massed descents on the foreign concessions in Tientsin, Shanghai and Hankow...
...The most effective help the outside world can give us is to allow our products to be traded freely and openly...
...If they had succeeded, the news would have been heard like a thunderclap and Hong Kong would have been engulfed in a new flood...
...But now our traditional friend and ally is our most belligerent enemy...
...CHINESE REFUGEE: I was lucky...
...Those with long memories will not make too much of the Hong Kong crisis...
...Those who are the burden seek only hope...
...Hong Kong is densely populated, but Taiwan is equally as crowded...
...Since 1955, we have built or subsidized 180 full-sized schools of all kinds and a new one is opened in Hong Kong every 10 days...
...The results shocked us...
...After a long drought, the rains brought floods in Kwantung...
...But after our conferences with the British in Peking, we restored the controls just as effortlessly and effectively as we had relaxed them...
...The British have saved us from embarrassing humiliation by closing the border...
...Our most important industry, textiles, is already suffering from embargoes by England and America...
...If we were contemplating a military assault on the mainland, it would be essential to absorb the refugees if only to bring new blood to our aging army...
...But since then they have given sanctuary to a million people, increased the standard of living of the old-time residents, and made great advances in providing the housing and social welfare services the community needs...
...There are diplomatic facilties through wh:ch the English can undertake private discussions with interested nations and provide the leadership to gain the kind of international assistance they want and need...
...The refugee is a faceless Kwantung farmer, a former landowner who has reached a half century in years and wonders when the sorrows will cease...
...The industry of our people has built an important manufacturing and commercial community...
...At any rate, the bars are there, the food passes through the bars, and somewhere else is home...
...He would not let the boy go back, and we understood...
...Before any nation has the right to condemn our actions, it should tell us how many Chinese immigrants it will take...
...The political necessities of the situation forced us to immediate response...
...Are we to do in 12 years what no one found possible in 12 centuries...
...We took a census in 1961...
...If we did not allow another immigrant to come to Hong Kong from this day forward, our population would still increase by 100,000 per year...
...But there is another side to the question...
...Everyone belonged to a family, and whether there was little or much, everyone got something...
...We can send some rice and pork to Hong Kong to feed the refugees as they arrive, and we will do this...
...Without that need, the refugees only add to the overwhelming economic burdens of our island...
...The Hungarians had no political alternative but to flee...
...Hong Kong can still absorb additional refugees, perhaps a million, perhaps more...
...People are our greatest problem and resource-and, at present, our greatest weapon...
...Otherwise, it is feared, Peking might seek to relieve the pressure of famine by seizing the rice bowl countries of Southeast Asia...
...they do not normally earn their keep...
...Perhaps they do not expect rice or bread to come to them from the conscience of humanity, but it comes nevertheless and it brings with it the humiliation of the zoo...
...the American people have not...
...Those who create the burden do not feel its grief...
...The Chinese who come to Hong Kong are not leaving China for political reasons...
...Our power base is secure and we don't expect that anyone will want to test it...
...Don't forget that...
...Our population had grown from 600,000 in 1946 to 3.3 million in 1961...
...Others, notably Chester Bowles, have been arguing that a program of food assistance to China may be necessary to curb China's aggressive attitudes...
...The British have been subject to much hostile criticism from friends and allies during these past difficult months...
...I listened to the stories of the witnesses-of those who have the responsibility, of those who created the burden, of the victims, of the helpless bystanders...
...Further stifling of our exports may inflict mortal wounds on the Colony's economy...
...The only place where our problems are going to be resolved realistically is here in Hong Kong itself...
...The picture of Li Ying, the dejected, crying young girl being forced to return to China, did more to humanize the crisis than all of the statistics...
...It turned out that there were 70,000 immigrants who tried to force their entry illegally, but for all we knew there could have been seven million...
...Are these reasons any less valid than those which caused East Germans, Hungarians or Cubans to leave their country to seek refuge in a more hospitable land...
...Of course, we know they run a risk...
...Perhaps there are other methods of reaching the humane objective...
...In the United States our supporters immediately suggested Taiwan...
...How many immigrants can Hong Kong absorb and still survive...
...Of the 3,000 who made such claims, not one story stood up under scrutiny...
...In the middle of June when the crisis was safely behind us, we asked all new immigrants to register, promising them that they would not be deported...
...The Chinese have always emigrated because of internal pressures...
...The most important effect of the events of May is that world attention was focused on Hong Kong and its population problems...
...by definition they believe that home is somewhere other than where they are now...
...Without the possibility of such an assault, we don't need a larger, more aggressive military force...
...The word "refugee" is not in our Government's dictionary...
...American preachments on Hong Kong have been too pontifical...
...The characters whose stories are told here exist in composite form...
...Housing, schools and hospitals are available to him on precisely the same terms as to those who were here before he came...
...There will be no fundamental change in the immigration laws in any of the Western countries for the foreseeable future...
...We talked about shuttle trains from the border to the harbor where the refugees could be loaded on ships and brought to Taiwan...
...Perhaps Walter Lippmann speaks for official Washington when he urges the United States to grant generous aid with no strings attached...
...CHINESE COMMUNIST SPOKESMAN: Hong Kong exists as a Crown Colony at our sufferance...
...No one liked the job he had to do, but what was the alternative...
...immigration quota should be for Italians or Yugoslavs...
...Our problem is immigration...
...Certainly there is discontent, hunger, human misery and fear of possible famine...
...The noise in our ears is not only the thunder from China-it is the population explosion...
...That is what Hong Kong means to me...
...As long as we hobble ourselves with immigration and refugee legislation hostile to the Chinese people, we cannot exhort the British to tear down their barbed frontier...
...If it were a challenge to our regime, we would smother it in minutes...
...Our soldiers are not hungry...
...and anyway, the British would not let them if they could, for fear of upsetting the balance between the Crown Colony and Communist China...
...The Hong Kong refugees are an international problem but a British responsibility...
...Even if there were a free election in Hong Kong, we would probably win it...
...Our offer was never even formally conveyed: We don't have official diplomatic relations with the British, which makes discussion difficult...
...Without trade, the argument goes, we cannot give the refugees jobs to make them self-sufficient...
...When the British built their barbed-wire wall they gave an important message to our people: Stay where you are and make the best of it because you haven't anywhere else to go...
...Maybe the Communists can make China a great nation again...
...The fact that China continues to export rice to other countries (including Castro's Cuba) will do much to bring political considerations into balance with the humanitarian ones...
...Over 40,000 appeared for registration...
...Its relation to England has changed...
...The realities may lend support to their conclusions and our good faith may be questioned, but in truth the realities do not allow us to make a substantive contribution...
...The Communists would suffer a severe defeat in the eyes of the world by the simple fact that thousands of refugees were fleeing their tyranny...
...Perhaps we deserve it...
...In a perfect world Hong Kong would be an international responsibility...
...The doctors in the camp did not report a single case of malnutrition, and they gave almost everyone at least a cursory examination...
...Even so, there is some question about the extent of their hunger...
...No nation has handled such a massive refugee problem so well-and without outside assistance...
...The last thing they want is for us to use them or Hong Kong as a launching pad for our political activity and propaganda...
...The "refugee crisis" in May did nothing but help us...
...Everyone knows without saying it that the alternative to British rule is Communist takeover, and that would serve no one's purpose-at least for the time being...
...There is no unemployment, though under-employment is becoming a source of concern...
...We are the only force that prevents their admission to the United Nations, that offers alternative allegiance for the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, that offers even a glimmer of hope to the millions of Chinese on the mainland who hate Communist rule...
...About 99 per cent of the population is Chinese and they accept the rule of a handful of Englishmen...
...Many more thousands come in illegally...
...Without American support, such an assault is unthinkable...
...Its beneficiaries will include those refugees who have waited for years to come to America to be reunited wih their families and those who have special skills to bring to their new country...
...Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek threw open the gates of Taiwan to all newly arrived refugees whom Hong Kong could not accept...
...For commercial and humanitarian reasons, the West does not want to see Hong Kong extinguished...
...True, we have some difficulties...
...Most of the immigrants had been walking or traveling for many days without food...
...missionaries and educators planted deep roots in Chinese soil...
...Our objective is to make the immigrants self-sufficient as soon as possible...
...The same message is written on the east side of the wall in Berlin...
...Those charged with the responsibility do not want the burden...
...Our Government has never distinguished in any way between the immigrant population and the population which has its roots here...
...Ask the constables...
...Taiwan is still at war with the Communists...
...As for our relations with the British, we regard them as insignificant...
...The city people are being sent to the communes to share the work and food-there's plenty of work but not enough food for ourselves...
...The native Formosan population continues to be resentful about the "Chinese invasion" and would not be happy to see any further large-scale arrivals...
...The Chinese Communist is an editor of a local paper which is openly identified with Peking...
...and he turned and offered his plate...
...The answer was simple-too simple...
...Food is short everywhere, but we have done our best to ration our food resources fairly...
...Shortages of food and clothing have not been and are not now basic problems in Hong Kong...
...Hong Kong justified its action by arguing that it could not absorb an unlimited number of immigrants...
...Most of the people living in the Hong Kong border areas were refugees themselves...
...We appreciate the continued offers of surplus food from America (it is interesting how the word "surplus" always precedes the offer of food), but the present programs are totally sufficient...
...The Nationalists are overwhelmed by too many problems of their own on Taiwan to make any significant contribution...
...The recent American embargo on textile products has caused great alarm in Hong Kong industrial circles...
...The indications are, however, that the Hong Kong textile magnates are preparing to settle for voluntary quota limitations, which will at least serve to guarantee an important percentage of the market for them...
...We have heard every slogan and promise, but we don't believe them anymore...
...During his April visit with President Kennedy, Prime Minister Macmillan raised the question of American surplus food for Communist China as a means of relieving the refugee pressure on Hong Kong...
...their well-being depends on someone else's charity...
...It is our greatest source of hard currency, an outlet for exports, a gateway to a world where a limited opening is all we want...
...Probably a great many of the Chinese are simple peasants who are unable to discuss their reasons for fleeing in political terms, but the fact remains that they are escaping from the oppression of the Communist system...
...We are plagued by floods and droughts, by bureaucratic stupidity and lack of transportation, by a breakdown in communications, and the hostility not only of the West but also of the Soviet empire...
...They cannot turn away hungry countrymen...
...No nation, no group of nations, is prepared to absorb one, or 10, or 100 hundred million Chinese-and the figure could be even higher...
...This point of view would have a much more difficult time in Congress than Lippmann or Bowles think...
...A Report on the Refugees Conversations in Hong Kong By William J. vanden Heuvel This summer, not long after the British closed Hong Kong's borders and more than 60,000 Chinese were forced back to Communist rule, I visited the Crown Colony to try to measure the burden of the refugees and see what could be done to help...
...They like to point out that the refugee crisis has been in existence for over a decade, yet, until May 1962, Taiwan was not prepared to take more than 1,000 refugees a year, able-bodied and carefully screened...
...First of all, there is no definite measure to the Chinese refugee problem...
...They are refugees and it is nonsense to say otherwise...
...The Chinese Nationalist lives in Hong Kong and works for Taiwan's interests...
...The boy's, mother had died en route to the frontier...
...There is clear evidence that the aim of most immigrants is to join their families and the people of their own race, language and dialect in Hong Kong...
...As the soldier began to eat, he felt the stares of a family of three...
...The Colonial Administrator is an amalgam of many Englishmen encountered at the Press Club or at official dinners...
...One mobile canteen stopped to give a soldier a meal of rice covered with meat and sauce...
...Since 1949, more than a million Chinese immigrants have been permitted to become residents of the Colony...
...If Hong Kong couldn't, who could...
...Hong Kong has underemployment, but Taiwan has unemployment with hundreds of thousands in need of work...
...But do not make the mistake of thinking that 70,000 hungry beggars trying to cross Hong Kong's borders is a revelation of crisis and mortal turmoil in Peking...
...The discipline and loyalty of our Army is firm and constant...
...Now, my family is everywhere and nowhere, and the commune has wrecked the little freedom and security our farm gave to us...
...The authorities have had unexpected difficulties in finding sufficient eligible refugees to fill even this minimal program...
...We regard a "relief mentality" as insidious...
...Only within the boundaries of the Crown Colony can real aid be given -not only relief but the real assistance of making men whole and sufficient unto themselves...
...When Americans consider Hong Kong, they are struck by terrible crosscurrents of conscience, compassion and political history...
...This is an immigration problem...
...should give, but it is also the kind of aid Britain can give...
...Each story is different, but hearing them may help us understand the frustrations of today's crisis more clearly...
...Another form of assistance which we can and will accept would be financial contributions to our capital construction program to help build the roads, reservoirs, schools and housing which the new immigrants require...
...When wasn't there...
...They have lived in grief and chaos for most of their lives...
...This way, we can make our offer without being required to implement it...
...CHINESE NATIONALIST: When the British closed the border they created a special problem for us...
...They were too sick and too hungry and were finding it difficult to go any further across the ravines during their journey in the dark...
...We integrate every refugee-I mean immigrant-into the community...
...If they try to use it as a base of political operations against us, we could turn off its water, send in a battalion of soldiers to occupy it, or unleash a stream of refugees to drown it...
...Let me make the fundamental point in our policy clear: Hong Kong does not have a refugee problem...
...The capital cost and continuing maintenance of these projects, in addition to the costs of building and maintaining a water supply system and health facilities, has taken at least a quarter of Hong Kong's budget during the past decade...
...Although we may compete with certain American industries, it should be remembered that we import practically the same dollar volume from the United States that we export to it...
...That is not to say that some of them were not hungry...
...The sound of marching Chinese feet sends shudders up every Western back...
...The program essentially raised the quota for Chinese immigration from 105 to 5,000 for one year...
...One day the road was clogged with Chinese pressing across the border: the next day it was filled with our lorries taking them back...
...But the strange thing about those weeks in May was that most of the refugees trying to break through the border barriers were the young and strong...
...Taiwan would become an even stronger voice for "free China" by being the haven to which these refugees could turn...
...Hong Kong is a paradox: a colony in an anti-colonial era...
...This has not been true of any of the other postwar refugee crises...
...Some cynics pointed out that the arithmetic of this offer would be zero, since the British would not allow any refugees into the Crown Colony unless they were prepared to accept them as residents...
...We allow Hong Kong to live because it helps us...
...Does the British Government tell the Philippines that it should change its immigration policies to admit Chinese...
...We have paid our own way...
...I don't suppose Hong Kong will last very long, but for the years of my life, for the present, it is the only hope I have...
...But in our world we cannot even invite United Nations assistance because China has not been allowed admission...
...Does London tell Washington how large the U.S...
...Another factor is the limited land and water resources of Hong Kong...
...Refugees live in camps...
...It used to be said that the greatest social security system in the world is the Chinese family...
...Austria had to accept the 200,000 people who came across the border, although the free nations were quick to take their quotas and left Austria with only 20,000 refugees to absorb...
...The United States has made it very clear, however, that it will not support any invasion...
...If there are, we will try to do them...
...COLONIAL ADMINISTRATOR: Hong Kong has changed-and I don't mean only in terms of population...
...Throughout the entire crisis, only one shot was fired and that at the leg of an immigrant who lunged for the gun of a police officer...
...The President's emergency program allowing 5,000 Chinese refugees entry into the United States is more symbolic than substantive...
...I am tired...
...Despite hunger and vitamin deficiencies, millions are not dying as in China's former years of sorrow...
...What could be better...
...I want to work and sleep and eat in peace...
...Many refugees died in the hills...
...The British met this with silence and quiet rage...
...To give immediate relief to the Chinese in the Hong Kong border area, perhaps a no-man's land could be formed at the frontier where relief feeding stations could be established...
...When he handed the plate back, telling them that there wasn't any more meat in his ration, one of the immigrants threw the plate in his face...
...This experience supports the judgment that the vast majority of the refugees want to stay in the Crown Colony, close enough to their native land to hope to see their families and homes once more before they die...
...This is the kind of aid the U.S...
...If the Communists are willing to divert hard currency which might otherwise go to their industrialization program, would it not be wise to consider selling surplus grain to them directly or indirectly...
...Russia would stop it and the United States would not support it...
...The American Government and voluntary agencies have been aware of the refugee problems of Hong Kong for the past decade...
...All have the same rights and the same opportunities...
...The Communists would love the opportunity of flooding Taiwan with spies and agents who come disguised as refugees...
...We are a nation of 700 million people...
...William J. vanden Heuvel, who is President of the International Rescue Committee, recently returned from Hong Kong...
...There is no movement for self-determination, there are no student riots clamoring for "freedom...
...That estimate now seems very low...
...The U.S...
...Happily, at the same time, we have been able to manage budget surpluses in 10 of the last 12 years while keeping our tax base at a reasonable level...
...Food would then be available without the problem of additional immigration pressure...
...It is still absorbing the millions of Chinese who fled during the civil war...
...The early days of May were frightful...
...In any case, revolt in China is impossible...
...Is it hard to figure out why I tried to get to Hong Kong...
...One of the reasons we recognized the Communist regirne in Peking in 1949 was to protect the Colony...
...One multi-story resettlement block capable of housing 2,000 people goes up every nine days...
...The classic arguments for free trade find their best test in Hong Kong...
...If you can't get out, then you either have to make the best of it where you are or revolt-and, after what happened in Hungary, no one supposes that the West is going to help anyone revolt...
...Perhaps Hong Kong means something else to them, at least a different kind of hope...
...Now the Hungarian Revolution created a refugee problem...
...would provide the money to make the whole operation workable...
...Let us recognize this as a refugee problem with important political overtones, and then let us frankly state that there are circumstances which make it necessary to consider Hong Kong in a special light...
...Their social structure has been destroyed, they are subject to a military discipline that has no regard for human values, they are the victims of a regime whose belligerence and mistakes have plunged their country into agricultural and economic bankruptcy...
...Since the British put up the wall, whatever resentment is created will be directed against them...
...There are 570,000 people living in housing financed directly or indirectly by the Government...
...We are closing factories in many cities...
...They do not, in the majority of cases, desire to go abroad...
...To do this, outside capital will be needed...
...The Crown Colony was intended as an outpost for the British Empire, but the Empire is gone and we are left with the outpost...
...They issued the same cries of distress in 1951 and '52, when the refugee flow was growing at a fast rate...
...We relaxed the border controls voluntarily and without too much thought...
Vol. 45 • September 1962 • No. 19
