CHINA'S Minister for Public Security, Mr Tao Siju, has urged the Hongkong authorities to relax immigration controls in the run up to 1997 so as to forestall a mass-migration after the Chinese takeover.
''We must start work now to streamline and simplify entry and exit procedures [for mainland visitors to Hongkong],'' Mr Tao said in Beijing yesterday.
The minister explained that by loosening controls on family visits and tourist trips now, demand to visit the territory after 1997 would be reduced.
''It is only natural that people will want to visit Hongkong after it returns to the motherland,'' Mr Tao said.
Last year 365,000 mainlanders came to Hongkong on two-way permits while in 1991 about 300,000 visited the territory.
Mr Tao stressed that Hongkong would not see similar scenes in 1997 to those in Berlin in 1989 when the wall came down and thousands of people flooded across the border.