Chinese Wall

The wall rose quickly. Along the 22-mile border between Red China and Hong Kong, trucks dropped huge coils of barbed wire, which were strung into a maze 10 ft.

high and 20 ft. wide. But unlike Walter Ulbricht's hated Berlin Wall, the new barrier was not built by the Communists; it was erected by the British last week to keep hungry refugees from the Red Chinese mainland out of the dangerously overcrowded Crown colony of Hong Kong.

With its population already a bloated 3,250,000, Hong Kong can no longer absorb the steady flow of mainlanders who pour into the city daily. As Red China's hunger worsened, the flow became a flood.

This month so far, some 40,000 Chinese have tried to slip into the city--and a Hong Kong newspaper reported that 700,000 more are on the way.

The Communists have made little effort to stop the escapes; the exodus eases their food problem and at the same time serves as a safety valve against protest uprisings.

Communist border guards even point the way to refugees clambering down the well-worn escape routes on precipitous Wu Tung Mountain outside Hong Kong.

British border patrols round up the "illegal immigrants" by the hundreds, but 20% of the border crossers slip through the dragnet, aided by relatives in Hong Kong and by say-tau (literally, snake heads). The say-tau sneak into the hills across the frontier and, for a price, supply the refugees with city clothing to replace their conspicuous peasant garb and with information about the safest routes into the city. Captured refugees are herded into a processing camp, questioned, fed, and then sent back across the frontier to the mainland. This month, more than 30,000 have been sent back to Red China. Most, however, camp out in the hills just across the border, waiting to make the try again.

"I've been over the border five times," said a young farmer about to be returned to the mainland last week. "If you deport me today, I'll be back again tomorrow." British officials fear that either the Red Chinese will start refusing to allow the refugees back on the mainland, thus straining Hong Kong to the breaking point, or the escapees will begin to resist arrest, precipitating riots in the colony. But so far, no nation, however sympathetic, has offered to take in any appreciable number of the refugees from Red China's misery. Thus the British will have to rely on the new barbed-wire wall to keep the refugees out of Hong Kong. "It won't stop them all," said one British army engineer. "But it will cut the number down."

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