Chinese Swarming Into Hong Kong

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29824, 17 May 1962, Page 13

Chinese Swarming Into Hong Kong

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

HONG KONG, May 16.

Smashing down the border fence before them, a near-reeprd number of refugees poured into the colony from China yesterday, bringing the total for the half-month to 25,000, according to unofficial but authoritative reports today.

Estimates of the numbers coming across during the hours of darkness, only to be caught and deported, range from 4000 to 6000.

The flood of illegal immigrants has swelled since the week-end. when the last official statement of 10.000 in 11 days was made. Since then, the figures are known to have soared, and special arrangements went into force today to try to empty the packed holding camp at Faniing. The escape figures for yesterday tend to support the belief that there has been no tightening up on the Communist side against departures. The lemming-like invasion of people has set the Hong Kong Government a puzzle. Even high officials are baffled by the unprecedented assault on the frontier by people who this, week have been coming across in thousands, have been rounded up and sent back to China without a protest. Why are they being allowed out of China where up to a few weeks ago, Communist frontier guards opened fire at any suspected defector in the border area?

Why do they come across the wire in droves, walking peacefully into the arms of waiting police and Gurkha troops instead of splitting up and making a run for it? Why do they have no explanation to offer for their flight, beyond saying they are hungry, or fear a worsening food situation, when most of them appear anything but undernourished?

Why do they allow themselves to be put back over the border without a murmur, and filter off into the hills, virtually ignored by the .Chinese authorities, to make another break for Hong Kong the next night? The whole colony is speculating on these questions, but not even official quarters have been able to come up with any answers Almost to a man. escapees coming across all along the 25-mile frontier give shortage of food, or fear of it this summer, coupled with deteriorating conditions. as their reason for quitting Kwangtung. Communist cadres and militiamen they meet turn a blind eye, and some refugees claim to have even received directions from officials on which section of the border, to head for. Some have travelled by train, and according to some statements which cannot be checked, whole villages have fled en masse and communes have been denuded of labour

A high percentage of the “border hoppers’’ are ablebodied men aged between 18 and 30 who have come from as far away as north of Canton and Swatow.

The refugees can be seen gathering during daylight for their mass assaults on lhe frontier, while public works men on the British side repair the smashed fence

They squat all day in the baking sun awaiting nightfall. hundreds crouching against 'he barrier until the time comes to move.

Communist border guards sitting in the shade of their pillboxes make no effort to stem the flood, according to eyewitnesses in the security area.

Police on the Hong Kong side, on duty 48 hours at a stretch, manage to catch most of the passive escapees They tend to stick together, and offer no resistance to “arrest ’’

Army trucks take them tn 'he overflow ; ng police training unit at Fanling in the

New Territories, which has been turned into a holding camp.

There they are given a meal of boiled rice, salted fish and vegetables, and bedded down in tents. Next morning, the procession by truck starts back to Lowu, a township in the New Territories where the railway crosses the border. Up to now, the Communist authorities have been taking back the shuffling thousands filing over the border bridge, with few exceptions. Although they do not seem to have reinforced their frontier staff, they are operating a fast but close checking system. They seem to be able to weed out former Hong Kong residents or people who left China by way of Macao, and shuttle them straight back to the Hong Kong side, where immigration officials have no course but to accept them. Most of these “rejects” are bus drivers, skilled workers or overseas Chinese who have returned to the mother country in recent years. The weather this spring along the China coast has been unusually dry, and rice paddy in the new territories adjoining Kwangtung is beginning to yellow already. Some observers say that the peasants' instinct for impending famine is behind the mass i..igration, that commune discipline has collapsed and that Peking is not aware of what is happening in its southernmost province. Another theory is that the Peking regime may be encouraging some of its surplus population in the traditionally turbulent south to migrate in the hope that they can be supported, at least temporarily. elsewhere. Yet another is that the Chinese in Kwangtung. having learned from relatives of the Hong Kong Government’s recent policy statement against illegal immigration, have been into thinking that they can make a break bef >re the curtain is lowered. None of f :se possible explanations has any overt official support, as Government servants admit that they themselves are still guessing for an answer. The official position of the Hong Kong Government is that it must check illegal immigration to protect the living standards of its present 3.250,000 people.