'Vietnam expels 90,000 victimised Chinese’

Press, 29 May 1978, Page 8

'Vietnam expels 90,000 victimised Chinese’

International

NZPA-Reuter Peking China has accused Vietnam of intensifying its efforts to expel Hua people (Chinese living in Vietnam), and yesterday said almost 90,(MX) had now been forced to leave Vietnam as the situation worsened.

The New China News Agency said 17,700 “victimised Chinese” had returned to China from Vietnam between May 21 and 26, bringing the total to almost 90,000. “Vietnamese authorities are intensifying their efforts to expel Chinese residents to continue to deteriorate the relations between China and Vietnam and to undermine the traditional friendship between the two peoples, and this has caused strong regret and indignation among the Chinese people,” the N.C.N.A. said! China announced on Saturday it was sending ships for a sea-borne evacuation of Chinese from Vietnam, and the Vietnam News Agency reported yesterday that Peking had informed Hanoi of the plan. The agency said the Chinese Ambassador (Chen Chio-feng) had told the Vietnamese Vice-Foreign Minister (Hoang Bidh son) of the proposal to send vessels to pick up Chinese from the northern port of Haiphong and Ho Chi Minh City, in the south, the former South Vietnamese capital, Saigon.

The Vietnam News Agency quoted the Vice-Minister as having told the ambassador he would report the Chinese plan to higher quarters.

The Vice-Minister also dismissed as “sheer fabrication" Peking’s charges that the Chinese residents had been expelled and persecuted describing Vietnam’s policy towards the Chinese as “a correct one,” the V.N.A. said.

In another dispatch on Saturday, the agency also quoted a Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman as proposing to settle the issue of the Chinese residents in Vietnam through negotiations.

The Associated Press reported from Budapest that the Hungarian News Agency, M.T.1., quoted a Vietnamese Foreign Ministry statement as explaining that since December 31, 1977, when Cambodia started to attack Vietnam, Hua people had launched whispering propaganda that China supported Cambodia against Vietnam.

They said a “big war had broken out between China and Vietnam, and Chinese people living in Vietnam

will suffer. Departure from Vietnam must be made as soon as possible.” “The Vietnamese side proposes that propaganda aimed at playing on people’s feelings, harmful to the friendship between the two peoples, be stopped, and that representatives of the two Governments meet soon to settle the differences over the Hua (Chinese) people question in . a spirit of friendship for the benefit of the two peoples,” the spokesman said in a statement carried by V.N.A.

China has accused Hanoi of persecuting and maltreating Chinese residents in Vietnam and has spoken of mass arrests, woundings, and killings in Ho Chi Minh City and other places. The official Chinese media have been giving major play to the situation of the Chinese in Vietnam and returnees to China. The N.C.N.A. carried another long report from the border area yesterday in which it said the “overseas Chinese compatriots went through untold hardships and dangers on their way out.”

“At the reception centre, the tearful refugees had tragic stories to teH. Many had been born in Vietnam. The older ones had lived there for decades. The great majority were working people. During their persecution by the Vietnamese authorities, many Chinese had the meagre fruits of decades of hard work confiscated or stolen. “Most Chinese living in Ho Chi Minh City had their property searched and impounded before they fled, and were in a pathetic state. They lost their possessions to the Vietnamese public security personnel who used both overt and covert methods of seizing them along the way,” the N.C.N.A. said.

China has withdrawn technicians from some projects in Vietnam, according to East European sources. But there was no suggestion of a complete cut in China’s aid to Hanoi.

The “Washington Post” has reported that China has reinforced its troops along its border with Vietnam.