UK extends visa rights to 3 million Hong Kongers

[Eddie Teach]

I strongly believe that one person has no way of influencing the world.  The only proper way for me to interact with the world is through monetary transactions.  Otherwise I cannot, and should not influence anybody.  The world is like a Super Mario Bros game.  Essentially, I have to play by the programmers' rules. 

The point that I am trying to make is, you know precious little about me 

If you cannot influence anybody or anything, there's no reason to be concerned about what you should or should not do, it wouldn't make a difference.

And the only thing I know about you is how you present yourself here. That's entirely within your influence.

Exactly.  Why vote when I cannot influence the outcome?  That's why I don't vote.  I firmly believe that my one vote will never make any difference.  It is also morally wrong for me to influence others politically.  Even if my one vote may decide Trump vs Biden (I have a strong preference for Biden), I won't vote.  Because it is wrong for me to do so. 

And you know what, I post here.  In an obscure English forum 99.99999% of Hong Kongers have not heard of.  There are tons of forums in HK.  Have you ever considered why I post here instead of the HK forums? 

To ensure I don't influence anybody in Hong Kong

And here I thought it was because you like us. 

[Monoriu]

It's not the draconian laws that will make finance leave, it's the lack of faith in chinese laws. That's what's made HK attractive. Access to the asian market with the assurance of dependable laws.

I have no idea why you keep insisting that HK now uses Mainland laws.  The Basic Law has a provision that allows Beijing to impose any law on Hong Kong.  That is not new.  It is there from the beginning.  Beijing introduced a National Security Law to combat very obvious riots and civil unrest.  Not to screw the fund managers.  If I were a fund manager, I wouldn't be too concerned. 

Otherwise, most things remain unchanged.  Life goes on. 

Its true Hong Kong has long been on shaky ground.
However before recent events the was an element of trust with China. A belief that "Sure, they could swoop in at any moment and alter the laws in their favour, but they won't, they're happy with the status quo, they value money over ensuring authoritarian control over one small city.".
Recent events have shown the flaw in this belief.
The question then becomes who is trusted more, the Singapore government (or whoever else) or the Chinese government.

With the general global economic movements away from China towards SE Asia picking up speed Singapore is really well placed for the future.

I don't think Singapore is a real equivalent to Hong Kong.  The big draw of Hong Kong is the listing of Chinese companies.  They are not going to list in Singapore.  They want to list in a place they know they can trust.  Because of the ongoing trade war between the US and China, many Chinese companies originally listed in the NYSE want to move back to HK.  Singapore isn't a real competitor to HK in this regard.  If the investment banks want to play this game, they'll have to do it in HK. 

[Monoriu]

And here I thought it was because you like us. 

[The Brain]

Spies like us.

[Tonitrus]

Чем меньше ты знаешь, тем лучше.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

If you are content with being politically apathetic,

Do you know such a person because that person is not you

You are pretty fanatically partisan. You even use slurs for your opponents, I don't even do that.

I have strong views, but I don't act on them 

You don't have to, your side is winning.

I strongly believe that one person has no way of influencing the world. 

more than enough example from history (and not even old history) that render your belief invalid

[Sheilbh]

Totally agree with this article - doubt we'll have learned those lessons but it would be worth it:

Hong Kong: Britain must prepare now for a great wave of immigrants
Failure to plan for the migration that followed Europe's eastward expansion led to political chaos and Brexit. But as the UK opens the door to Hong Kong, we're failing to plan once again

By
James Ball

April 14, 2021

There is a case to be made that Tony Blair and his Home Office were the architects of Brexit. It's an argument that stems from the choices made around the 2004 entry to the EU of the "accession eight" (A8)—the Union's new Eastern European members.

Unlike the overwhelming majority of established EU states, the UK did not introduce any initial restrictions on the right to live and work in the country for citizens of the A8 nations—the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. We treated their citizens like other EU nationals from the off.

The Home Office had predicted that the number of people moving from those nations to the UK would be less than 20,000 a year. In reality, in the first three years alone, some 250,000 people from the A8 nations came to the UK—often skilled workers providing a challenge to existing UK tradespeople. The fabled Polish plumber had arrived.

Inevitably, all this immigration wasn't evenly spread across the country. Particular employers and sectors developed links with national communities, and the newcomers naturally often wanted to live near people they knew, or at least to get familiar food from home or something similar. Especially in the east of England, soon a particularly strong region for Ukip, some towns that had never previously seen much immigration witnessed large influxes of economic migrants.

Even though the data shows the people from A8 countries brought considerable net economic benefits to Britain, unexpected and unplanned migration has consequences: pressure for housing increased, there was more competition for school places, some people's businesses suffered thanks to new rivals. The sense of competition for resources intensified after the economy cratered in 2007/8, and then through the long squeeze on wages and public service spending that followed the crash.

All this in turn fed into less reasonable resentments—complaints that people on the bus weren't speaking English, and so on—and by the 2010s had propelled immigration to the top flight—and sometimes the very top spot—of polling tables about the issues voters said they cared most about.

Back in 2004, the decision not to restrict immigration from A8 countries was not, at the time, a major political issue. Not even the Conservative opposition resisted it. But the political consequences have rocked through the years since—Britain is an island at the edge of a big continent. It is not used to large-scale immigration and on recent form, doesn't react well to it.

All this might be dismissed as a history lesson, but for one thing: the UK has every reason to expect another major influx of new, skilled migrants—this time from Hong Kong.

The UK, having now plainly failed on its 1997 promise to protect the freedoms of Hong Kong's people after handing the region to China, has extended them an offer to move here through a new visa scheme. This is not small beer—estimates suggest around 5.4m people are eligible to move to the UK under the new programme, and where the official estimates for A8 immigration were in the low tens of thousands, this time they are much higher: suggesting 300,000 or more people could move to the UK from Hong Kong in the next few years.

The scenarios are not identical: citizens of the A8 countries were desperate to move to countries offering much better wages for the same work—and concentrated on the few EU states that were immediately open to them. Hong Kongers are not looking to emigrate for economic reasons, but political ones. But what's similar is that at least some of them have very few options, and the UK is high on their list.

Numerous articles have been written extolling the potential benefits of this immigration—and as far as they go they are absolutely right. Around two-thirds of people in Hong Kong speak English, and it is a high-skilled workforce that could help support the government's "Global Britain" ambitions. In economic terms, an influx from Hong Kong looks like a sure-fire winner.

The experience of the A8 wave of immigration should teach us to sound a note of caution, though. If A8 disrupted life and bred resentment among tradespeople and construction workers, large-scale immigration from Hong Kong could disrupt several high-status middle-class occupations. Unhappy professionals have a knack for making a political fuss. And just like the A8ers, Hong Kongers will likely move into a few specific cities, rather than spread uniformly. There are bound to be pressures on certain local public services and housing markets.

None of this is to say the UK has done the wrong thing, or should change course. What it does mean is that the UK could be using the time Covid-19 crisis has bought it—few people are moving continent during a pandemic—to work out how to get immigration and integration right this time.

We know that a wave of high-skilled immigration will boost the public coffers, so we shouldn't be afraid to spend a bit of money early on—making sure councils where lots of people move from Hong Kong have extra support, so services don't suffer. Language learning assistance, support services for integrating into a new country, and publicity measures explaining why the UK has offered sanctuary to Hong Kong's people—emphasising the historic ties and promises made by Britain—could all help.

The government has announced a limited selection of measures, but so far has allocated just £43m to those efforts—which is less than £150 for every expected arrival, even if the official estimates are right this time. Skimping on the pennies now could cost pounds—and warp politics—later.

Councils, meanwhile, don't even know what they don't know. One London council, contacted by an NGO keen to make the Hong Kong visa moves a success, said it didn't foresee any issues because it had a sizeable Chinese population already, blithely unaware that there may be tensions between groups that identify with China, and those fleeing from it.

Blair made the decision not to restrict A8 immigration because he wanted to show Britain was a forward-looking, internationalist place—and ended up throwing us sharply in the opposite direction. Let's make sure this government's decision to help the people of Hong Kong does not do the same again.


James Ball
James Ball is Global Editor at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism

The thing about that London council is slightly alarming. Most of the British-Chinese community is still Cantonese and originally moved from Hong Kong, but the fastest growing (and most recent) in the last couple of decades have been from the Mainland which may not go down well.

[Sheilbh]

Interestingly early stats. I feel 30,000 in the first two months during a pandemic and UK lockdown may indicate the Home Office estimate is possibly on the low side - again

And shameful details on the number of refugees being settled.

UK receives 34,000 visa requests from Hong Kong in two months
Residency route was launched in response to national security law imposed by Chinese government
Jamie Grierson Home affairs correspondent
@JamieGrierson
Thu 27 May 2021 12.27 BST

There have been 34,000 applications for a new visa for people from Hong Kong seeking residency in the UK in just two months, the Home Office has revealed.

This compares with applications for visas of any type by just 5,354 EU citizens in the first three months of the year, including as short-term visitors. There were also 26,903 applications for asylum relating to 32,411 people in the UK in the whole of the year ending March.

The new route allows holders of British national (overseas) status and their immediate families to apply for BNO entry visas for either two periods of 30 months or a single period of five years. After five years they can apply to settle in the UK, and for citizenship after a further 12 months.

The route was launched in response to a harsh new national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the Chinese government.

Figures published on Thursday revealed there were 34,300 applications for the BNO route in the first three months of 2021, although it was only opened to applications on 31 January. So far, 7,200 of the applications have been granted.

An economic impact assessment by the Home Office published last year gave a "high" range estimate of 500,000 people with BNO status and their dependants arriving in the UK in the first year, with more than 1 million over five years.

Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said: "There's no reliable way to predict how many people from Hong Kong will move to the UK in the long term. The levels we are seeing in these data can't be expected to be representative of future flows – they may be suppressed by the pandemic, or may represent a larger than normal first wave because of pent-up demand."

She added: "Covid has had an extraordinary impact on migration, and low migration from EU countries is one consequence of that. In fact, there's evidence that net migration from EU countries was actually negative last year. Add to that the impact of a more expensive and restrictive visa system for EU citizens and it makes sense that not many have come under the post-Brexit immigration rules."

The home secretary, Priti Patel, said she was "delighted" that there have been more than 34,000 applications for the Hong Kong visa.

The latest migration figures also revealed that just 353 refugees were resettled in the UK in the year to March through government programmes. It's the lowest number of refugees to have been relocated to the UK in a 12-month period under government resettlement programmes for at least 11 years, and compares with 4,968 for the 12 months to March 2020, and 5,796 in 2018-19.

While resettlement programmes were suspended in March 2020, organisations including Refugee Action and Refugee Council have been critical of the government's delay in getting them restarted, with other countries being much quicker.

The restart of refugee resettlement was announced in the House of Lords in November, but just eight people were welcomed to the UK between then and the end of 2020.

Resettlement programmes are schemes run by the government that work with the UN and the International Organization for Migration to identify refugees overseas, such as in countries neighbouring war zones, and relocate them to the UK with refugee status already granted.

Refugee Council and Refugee Action say they have concerns about the government's commitment to resettle a fair number of refugees, despite the home secretary promising at a speech on Monday an expansion of safe routes for refugees to reach the UK.

Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive at Refugee Action, said: "Despite the home secretary's pledge to expand safe routes for people, for the first time in years, there is no commitment to welcome a single refugee under resettlement programmes.

"Resettlement does not run on hot air. It is doomed unless the government can commit to an ambitious target that shows the world it is prepared to do its fair share to help refugees."

[OttoVonBismarck]

I would think any sort of infusion of people from HK would be a fairly big benefit to the UK. Population stagnation is a huge problem in the West and Hong Kongers are all educated, most speak passable English etc.

[PDH]

And they have a generation at least to get bad teeth and learn to pass out on the street when partying.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I think it will be a big plus for the country; the 52% probably disagree though.

[Sheilbh]

I think it will be a big plus for the country; the 52% probably disagree though.

It has strong support from everyone at the minute. We'll see if the numbers climb particularly given the pittance the government have actually paid to help people moving over.

I think it'll be great - particularly if the younger people are able to make it over. And, you know, I think it is morally the right thing to do and I think the UK has a particular duty to offer people a way out as much as we can.

Edit: And to be honest I wasn't sure if many people would take up this route. 30,000 in February and March this year (given covid, given lockdown etc) has surpassed my expectations and I hope that is indicative and more people want to move.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The only downside is more pressure on housing. I do think that morally it is absolutely required and argued for a similar move back in the 1990s (in the pub with my mates, so...big deal  )

It will be interesting to see the numbers in a couple of years or so.

[Agelastus]

I think it will be a big plus for the country; the 52% probably disagree though.

52% - 1.

As I have said before this should have been done in 1997.

[Valmy]

I think it will be a big plus for the country; the 52% probably disagree though.

52% - 1.

As I have said before this should have been done in 1997.

Glad to hear it.

It was shameful it was not done back then. Hong Kong was always loyal to the UK, nice to see that loyalty being rewarded even 20+ years later.