British Hong Kong Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the Briti ...

was a major destination for

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

s fleeing

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

in the 20th century.

History

Before Communist China

China suffered a chronic

refugee crisis A refugee crisis can refer to difficulties and dangerous situations in the reception of large groups of Forced displacement, forcibly displaced persons. These could be either internally displaced person, internally displaced, refugees, asylum ...

in the first half of the 20th century, which worsened in the 1940s due to the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...

. Hong Kong was an attractive destination for those leaving China; the China-Hong Kong border imposed few restrictions on

freedom of movement Freedom of movement, mobility rights, or the right to travel is a human rights concept encompassing the right of individuals to travel from place to place within the territory of a country,Jérémiee Gilbert, ''Nomadic Peoples and Human Rights' ...

. The colony implemented formal immigration controls in 1940 after

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

captured

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

; the controls had limited success. Controls tightened at the end of the civil war. Hong Kong imposed new immigration regulations in April 1949, partly as a security measure against the Communists, and established the

Frontier Closed Area The Frontier Closed Area (), established by the Frontier Closed Area Order, 1951, and 1984 is a regulated border zone in Hong Kong that extended inwards from the border with Mainland China. Established to prevent illegal migrants and other i ...

border zone Border control refers to measures taken by governments to monitor and regulate the movement of people, animals, and goods across land, air, and maritime borders. While border control is typically associated with international borders, it a ...

in 1951. On the Chinese side, the PRC - motivated by distrust of the

Western Bloc The Western Bloc, also known as the Free Bloc, the Capitalist Bloc, the American Bloc, and the NATO Bloc, was a coalition of countries that were officially allied with the United States during the Cold War of 1947–1991. It was spearheaded by ...

- restricted cross-border movement in February 1952 by requiring entry and exit permits. Refugees continued to arrive after the Second World War. Another wave occurred as the newly founded PRC consolidated its control in southern China. By 1957, a third of Hong Kong's population of 2.5 million were refugees. Nonetheless, PRC measures did make natural growth the main source of population growth in Hong Kong.

Later waves

The flood-famine in Northern

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

in Spring 1957 led to a wave of refugees in July 1957. Thousands of hungry civilians gathered at the border since February claiming to "seek relatives".

Hongkongers Hongkongers (), also known as Hong Kongers, Hong Kongese, Hongkongese, Hong Kong citizens and Hong Kong people, typically refers to residents of the territory of Hong Kong; although may also refer to others who were born and/or raised in the ...

, upon seeing the scenes in newspapers, felt pity and brought food across the border and the political impact worried the Guangdong officials. On 29 June 1957, the Guangdong committee of

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...

authorized the

Bao'an County Bao'an County, formerly named Xin'an County, was a historical county in South China. It roughly follows the administrative boundaries of modern-day Hong Kong and the city of Shenzhen. For most of its history, the administrative center of the cou ...

to let the hungry get across the border. The

Great Chinese Famine The Great Chinese Famine () was a period between 1959 and 1961 in the history of the People's Republic of China (PRC) characterized by widespread famine. Some scholars have also included the years 1958 or 1962. It is widely regarded as the dead ...

caused another wave in 1962. The

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

reported that 140,000 Chinese entered Hong Kong in 1962, with 80,000 illegally entering in a single month. The large number, increased by temporarily relaxed PRC border controls, caused a diplomatic crisis.

Policy toward refugees

Hong Kong

Dr.

Edvard Hambro Edvard Isak Hambro (22 August 1911 – 1 February 1977) was a Norwegian legal scholar, diplomat and politician for the Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political pa ...

wrote, "Some may not be refugees in the legal sense but are in the broader sociological and humanitarian sense." A report in 1958 by the Hong Kong government wrote, "he refugees n 1957 however, have shown no desire to return to the mainland, even though Hong Kong is unable to offer to all the prospect of earning a reasonable living."Commission of Labour and Commissioner of Mines, ''Annual Report, 1957-58'', pp.60-61. As cited in

References

Sources

* * * {{refend Immigration to Hong Kong Riots and civil disorder in China Borders of Hong Kong Demographics of China Migrant crises