“Ex-China Vietnamese Illegal Immigrants” or “ECVIIs”: The Creation and Contestation of an Unwieldy Acronym

Absent in much of the literature of Vietnamese refugees and diaspora is that over 200,000 Vietnamese crossed into southern China, often forcibly, making China a somewhat unheralded resettlement country. The vast majority of these individuals were Chinese Vietnamese, who had been living in Vietnam, often for decades or longer. From the point of view of China, the UNHCR, and the international community, these individuals were now Chinese citizens who had been resettled on Overseas Worker Farms in China. However, Chinese Vietnamese who had left by boat and landed in Malaysia or Hong Kong or Indonesia, were deemed to be “Vietnamese,” “refugees,” and eligible for resettlement in the West. As a result, many Chinese Vietnamese now in China, saw this geographic division as arbitrary and unlucky. Perhaps, they too could be “Vietnamese refugees,” rather than Overseas Chinese, and then they could resettle in the west.

This paper investigates a set of documents where Chinese Vietnamese “resettled” in China took matters into their own hands and clandestinely traveled to Hong Kong in order to claim refugee status and resettlement in the West. The trick was, however, that they had to leave China by boat, and when they arrived in Hong Kong, it had to appear as if they had come directly from Vietnam. If officials believed they had been resettled in China, they would be seen as Chinese, and promptly deported. These individuals had to demonstrate that they had never been to China, but were rather, Vietnamese coming from Vietnam.

The ambiguousness of their status, and the ways in which they could manipulate these porous categories led to this new category: the Ex-China Vietnamese Illegal Immigrant. The history of the ECVIIs demonstrates the hairiness of legal categories, unexpected pathways for Vietnamese migration, and the limits of citizenship and refugee status.