The Government claimed last month that about 700,000 mainlanders had immediate right of abode in Hong Kong. Another one million would obtain the right within seven years.
The news has sent shock waves through a community that already lives in crowded conditions.
Can the SAR provide housing, schools, medical facilities and jobs for these people? Predicting 'unimaginable consequences', Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa said the SAR's population must not be allowed 'to get out of control'.
According to then Acting Chief Secretary for Administration Michael Suen Ming-yeung, $710 billion in capital expendi ture would be needed to provide housing, schools and hospitals for the first wave of immigrants.
The biggest problem, Mr Suen said, would not be coming up with the money, but finding the land to build on.
'In the past decade, the Government was only able to provide about 200 hectares of land on average each year,' he said. 'How we are going to meet such an enormous demand is indeed a problem.' Some legislators said the Government was engaging in scaremongering to garner public support to justify a weakening of judicial independence.