Speech #870200610

Mr. President. I submit. for appropriate reference. a resolution urging concerted action to help alleviate the tragic situation of the Chinese refugees in Hong Kong. In submitting this resolution. I am honored to be joined by my distinguished colleague. the deputy majority leader . by my good friend. the very distinguished senior Senator from Illinois . by the very able junior Senator from California . and by the very distinguished Senator from South Dakota . Mr. President. we have all been deeply moved by the press accounts of the mass influx of Chinese refugees into Hong Kong and by the heartrending stories about the many thousands of refugees who have been obliged to return to Red China because it is physically impossible for Hong Kong to provide accommodations and sustenance for refugees in such large numbers. When the American press printed a photograph of a refugee girl sobbing her heart out because she was about to be returned. the American people responded overnight with thousands of offers of adoption. Our people want to help in this tragic situation. I am sure we shall be speaking for all of them if we now commit ourselves to a generous program of assistance to the Chinese refugees now fleeing from Communist rule. in consultation and cooperation with the British authorities. This latest outpouring of refugees constitutes another dramatic demonstration of the bankruptcy of communism. The British administration in Hong Kong has already granted asylum to 1.500.000 refugees from Red China and. by and large. it has up until now pursued a generous and humane refugee policy. But without assistance from other countries and without serious possibility of resettlement in other countries. there is a 4 Nevitt Sanford. "The American College." John Wiley & Sons. Inc.. New York. 1962. physical limit to the number of refugees that can be absorbed by Hong Kongs tiny territory. I saw something of the Chinese refugee problem when I was in Hong Kong a year ago. The British authorities have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on housing projects and schools. retraining and job creation projects for the refugees. They have built and built until there is pathetically little ground left for any housing projects even on the hillsides of Hong Kong. But even with all this. the refugees are crowded five and six in a single room. Until recent weeks. the rate of influx has averaged about 100.000 refugees a year. or just over 8.000 per month. But 2 weeks ago. this river of human refugees grew into a flood. which poured into Hong Kong. by land and by sea. at a rate of 4.000 or 5.000 each day. These refugees are giving up their homes and are fleeing from Communist rule. in part because they are hungry. in part because they are terrified at the prospect of even more severe famine. in part because they do not wish to live any longer under that regime of coercion and oppression and hunger. Many of the refugees make their ways to Hong Kong under perilous conditions and without the consent of the Communist border authorities. But the evidence is that. for some strange reason. the Communists have eased up on their border controls. so that people who wish to leave for Hong Kong could do so. This mornings news indicates that the Communist authorities have reconsidered their position. and are now tightening up their controls at the Hong Kong frontier. Apparently the Communists are now worried over the political implications of this mass outflow of refugees. And they have every reason to be worried. because nothing more clearly demonstrates the failure of the Communist regime and the scope of popular dissaffection inside Red China. Meanwhile. the British authorities in Hong Kong have been confronted with the heartbreaking problem. Hong Kong cannot possibly accommodate an influx of more than 100.000 refugees a month. And. as the British authorities have pointed out. if they did accommodate them this month. next month there would be twice that number clamoring for admission. Under the circumstances. they have endeavored to strike a compromise. granting asylum to those who can clearly demonstrate that they have suffered political persecution or are in danger of suffering political persecution. but returning all those who cross the border with permits or who have fled from China for reasons that are considered primarily economic. Applying these criteria. the British administration has been returning under guard as many as 4.000 refugees per day. some of them caught in the frontier area. some of them rounded up from the hillsides and teeming refugee quarters of Hong Kong. The trouble with this criterion is that it is virtually impossible to draw a sharp dividing line between those refugees who seek sanctuary for political reasons and those who flee for primarily economic reasons. The fact is. that every political refugee. whether in Europe or in the Far East. reaches the big decision to give up his home and his homeland because of a combination of reasonspolitical. economic. social. and others. However these reasons may be weighted in any individual case. it all boils down to the fact that people become refugees because they find life under communism intolerable. Many of these socalled economic refugees have wept bitterly at the point of being returned. Others have offered physical resistance. Still others have jumped from moving trucks to escape from their British guards. And the refugees in Hong Kong. sympathizing with the plight of these newly arrived refugees are apparently doing everything in their power to protect them and to prevent their capture by the British police. Yesterday. for example. it was reported that refugee families shoved their children into the paths of trucks loaded with refugees being returned to mainland China. I do not wish to criticize the British administration in Hong Kong. because I know how heavy the burden has been and how truly generous and humane their attitude has been until now. I feel constrained to say. however. that I have been worried by certain press items dealing with the matter of involuntary repatriation. According to one report. a group of soldiers who had come over in their uniforms were returned to the Chinese Communist authorities. My own feeling is that. however lax the border officials were when these soldiers escaped. the soldiers will certainly be confronted with harsh punishment on their return. According to another report. one of the refugees recently sent back had been in Hong Kong several years. When his wife and child crossed the frontier recently to join him. the entire family was rounded up and returned. Perhaps such individual tragedies are unavoidable when so many thousands of people are involved and when the authorities in charge are so harried and exhausted. Rather than complain from the sidelines about any failure on the part of the British authorities in Hong Kong. I believe that we in the United States must first recognize. in far more generous measure. our own responsibilities in the Chinese refugee problem. The fact is that the problem of refugees from communism is the collective responsibility of the free world. and it should be recognized as such. And because of the great power and wealth of the United States in the free world community. this responsibility is preeminently our own. I believe that we have done our share in coping with the postwar refugee situation in Europe. with the Hungarian refugee situation. and with the Arab refugee situation. but in the case of the Chinese refugees in Hong Kong. I feel we have permitted the British administration to carry an exceedingly heavy burden with comparatively little American assistance. This is one of the reasons why they are obliged to take such stringent measures today. In the programs of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and of the International Committee on European Migration. it has traditionally been estimated that a fair share for the United States stands at approximately onethird of the total cost of the operation. I should like to propose. Mr. Presidentand this is part of the purpose of my resolutionthat we apply the same criterion to the refugee situation in Hong Kong. I should further like to propose that we take a series of measures. within the framework of existing legislation. designed to alleviate this tragic situation. I believe the proposals contained in my resolution are realistic. that they represent a minimum rather than a maximum. that these proposals are within our means. and that they could. if implemented. give effective assistance to our British friends and help them to keep the doors to freedom as generously ajar as possible.