PEOPLE

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.