The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is an agency that provides protection and assistance to the world’s refugees. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency was created by the United Nations General Assembly and began work in 1951, initially aiding more than one million European refugees in the aftermath of World War II. In the following decades, the number of uprooted people grew around the globe. In 2004, the number of people ‘of concern’ to UNHCR was 17.1 million worldwide.

 

The agency’s founding mandate defines a refugee as a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”

 

UNHCR established its office in China in February 1980 to respond to the Vietnamese refugee influx following the Sino-Vietnamese conflict in 1978-1979. During that period, large numbers of persons from northern Vietnam, the majority of whom were ethnic Chinese, fled from their homeland to China. The Chinese authorities provided them with refugee status and settled them in 6 southern provinces/autonomous region of China - Guangxi, Guangdong, Yunnan, Hainan (part of Guangdong province at that time), Fujian and Jiangxi. By the end of 2004, there were about 299,300 Vietnamese refugees living in Mainland China. In the past years, UNHCR has contributed over US$ 95 million for the local integration of the Indo-Chinese refugees in China, while the Chinese government has reportedly spent US$ 758 million for this purpose. After 25 years, the majority of Indo-Chinese refugees had achieved a level of self-reliance comparable to their host communities. 

 

The theme of this year’s World Refugee Day is “Courage”. It takes courage to be a  refugee, it takes courage to start a new life against daunting odds, eventually to become contributing and enriching members of society once more. Meanwhile we also see the contribution of the Chinese government to help the refugees to overcome the fear and give them a new opportunity to restart their lives here. UNHCR appreciates the generosity of the Chinese government to provide local integration to such a large group of refugees, which is very remarkable in the history of refugee crisis. We also hope the government will extend nationality to this group of people, who has been living in the country for so many years and mostly have been successfully integrated into the local community, to finish their history of exile.

 

 

 

Michel Gabaudan

Regional Representative

UNHCR Regional Representation in China