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Th Bwt hpk rcwnuncnr and shift the burden of their economic dfimltits on the Vicmamcse nuthoriti~s have k n inciting ethnic animosity. only pemte Chinese nationals who haw lived in Vicmnm for many ations, but also pemtc Vicmamesc citizen* of Chincsc descent nic minorities snd tha Vietname~e who di~pprwe of thek polieie* They deprive low people of heir means of IiwIihoDd despiepble methods and forcibly cxpcl them from the eounw. The Swiet Union's deputy forcEgn minister, Nikolai Firyubin, a spceeh to the UNHCR Geneva conference on 21 July 1979: The main remn for the deportrrre of ethnic China fm Vic~rsm L n krdption from the ouaide, as a rmult of which hundreds of thc deceived ethnic Chinese s m d leaving . , . The governor of Hong Kong, Sir Murray Maclehose, in an inttrvi with the Asian Wall Street Journal on 9 August 1979: This is something that ho~ been in mast Vicmmege minds a long time. Th$l just don't like Chincw, nnd arc rmspicious of them, and haw ~lwsys had feeling char hey tend w get thc cream out of Jlc mrry. US smte department spokesman, Tom Reston, on 16 June 1979 a It i~ clear that Vicmam h a adopted a cenmlly diimed,dcpomtion aLmd at the wholesale expulsion of . . . ethnic Chintse , . . We snd gowrnmmo how why tcfugsc8 arc king Indo-China and we d accept the canoept &at a government mn aimply shift the oblipciona to im people to the f trrnational community, Britain's secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affaih Lord Carrington, in EI speech to the umca Geneva conference 4 20 July 1979: One an only conclude tha they have left beuuse the piicics of the Vies namese government made it impossible for them to remain. * * * The exodus from northern Viemum into China probably started ii 1977, bur it was not until April 1'678 that Rking chose tu make sir issue of it, accusing Viemamae authorities of peraccuting and expelling tens of thousands of people of Chincsc origin who had long been I I Exodus &dent in Vietnam. Hanoi hit back with accusations that kking was threatening Vietnam in order to panic the HOP, using 'bed elements' among the local Chinese to spre~d concern. Fear h t they would be caught in the crossfire of a war btnvtcn Vitmam and China caused a rumour-prone community to stampede. The exodus was further stimulated by China's ready acceptance of refugees until it closed the border in July. Frum refugee interviews, it is clear that, for the most part and certainly in the initial stages of this sudden mass movement, Viemom tried to discourage people from leaving, while not actively preventing them. In Hong Kong in August-September 1979, a number of Hoa refugees from Hanoi, Haiphong and Mong Cai said rcassuring measures had been taken by the authorities. A noodle-maker from Haiphong said officials in his home precinct toured the streets telling pcople that here was nothing to fear, there would be no marsacrcs. A peasant from Quang Ninh (where some 55 per cent of all Chinese in north Vietnam lived) watched several neighbours leave, but was told by government officials: 'If you want ti go you can, but we would encourage you to stay'. Several Hanoi residents said they went to meetings of the government-sponsored 'fatherhnd front' and the official Lien Hoa (union of Chinese residents). One of them, an accountant, recalled the speaker at one meeting urging 'Hoa relatives' to remain calm and denouncing 'reactionaries' for trying to sabotage the friendship between the Vittname~ and Chinese peoples. In the summary of a US state department publication entitled 'Vietnam's refugee machine: which was handed in draft form to iournalists at dre UNHCR Geneva meeting in July 1979, American officials claimed that the Vietnamese leadership decided in March- April 1978 that Wrrrscning rclatims with China made Vietnam's Chintge minority. . . a fifth column that had to be eliminated. Chinese were encwraged to leave through B svstcmatic campaign of prnccution. Ethnic Chincse, including those who had lived peacefully in the north sincc 1954, were dismissed from thck jobs md threatened with conscription or transfcr to a new tconomic zom. Parts of the summary appear to be tendentious, designed to mke a case against Hanoi while glossing over China's role in encouraging
The Borrt hople the refugee exodus. The main evidence given for the asseni from early 1978 it was official Vietnamese policy to drive ou Chinese from the north was an interview in the domier with gee described as I former member of the Hdphong public s bureau's office of alien affain. Hc was quoted as saying March 1978 the ministry of the interior issued a directive stat it was government policy to expel ethnic Chinese from the a t northern Viemam, and that the Haiphong office expanded its a ties accordingly. Independent intmitws with refugees d port this: if such a directive were issued, it was more lik heen in March 1979, after the border war with China than in 1978. Tho interviews in the same dossier tell mote convincing A refugee who left Haiphong in early June 1978 add that, time he dtprrtcd, 60 per cent of Haiphong's 35 000 Chinese dents had already left, because of rumwrs that Haiphong a first point of attack if China invaded and that if this 'overseas' Chinese in Haiphong would be rounded up by V~etna police and imprisoned or executed. The city's administrators to counter these nunours by mounting loudswkers on trucks toured the Chinese sectors of Haiphong, bmdcasring that war unlikely beween the two communist neighbours and that, eve it should break out, Chinese in Vietnam would not be punished long as they remained loyal to Vietnam. Spccial editions of Chine language newspapers and meetings with Chinese leaders Haiphong were alm held. The s&e refugee aid that in another place (believed to be Ha in late May 1978, only 20 per cent of the Chinese residenn had He believed this was due to better control over news media avail to the Chinese, as well as the greater difficulty of laving Han which is inland. In his view, the Vietnamese government tried pcrsuade Chinese not to leave, because many of them held impoh positions in industry and mining; the trouble was mused by delib ate spreading of rumours intended to panic the Chincse. It w for him to understand why Chinese in southern Vietnam wis leave, as they were traditionally merchants who saw no future f~ themselves in a socialist economy, but Chinese in northern Victnam Exodus were different, They were vetenns of the socialist system and eaed citizens. Another interview in the dossier, with an ethnic Chinese refugce who had fonnerly bcen a government employee in northern Vier- "am, indicates that, while official policy was to encourage Chinese to remdn in Vietnam, in stntegidly sensitive regions near the bder with China measures were applied to test their loyalty. He said tha~ in early February 1978 in the area of Lo fii, a provincial capital un the Red River close to the frontier with China, Vietname~ public security forces had escorted to the border those Chinese who had cume to Vietnam since 1950 and hsd refused Vietnamese citizenship. Thcy were allowed to take with hem only their clothing. Subscqucntly, stories circulating in Hanoi and Haiphong that they would he well treated in China and helped to find good jobs prompted tens of thousands of Ha throughout Vietnam to journey by train to Lao Cai and crass into China's Yunnan province. Initially, Vietnamese authorities allowed those departing to enter China without a border check. As the numbers increased, the authorities began confiscating valuables, perhaps in an attempt to deter ao many from leaving. He wid that, on average, one or two members of every Chine= family in northern Vietnam had left for China. Most Chinese in Vietnam did not want to be sent to the countryside under the government's new cconomic program, so nearly aH wcre seeking a way out. While allegations that Hanoi was responsible for the Chinese exodus art not always borne out by independent interviews with refugees, neither arc Hanoi's allegations that China was responsible for instigating these mass departures. The movement out of Viemum and into China could not be stopped because it was fuejled by a potent mixture of rumour, panic and rhe increasingly virulent propaganda war btwccn Peking and Hanoi. Once started, it became selfgenerating. The hock waves from the northern exodus to China almost certainly spread to the Chinese community in southern Viernam, just as nationalization mcavurta and currency reform in mid-1978, which hit the Chinese-dominated business community in aouthtm Vietnam hardcst, also had an unsettling effect on Chinese in thc north.
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Page 34 and 35: drowned abut ten kilomctres from th
Page 36 and 37: The Boat Psople esc, Shc left Haiph
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