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Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

bbc.co.uk

171–180 of 409 posts

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#171
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't return something at the end of a contract is that theft? or piracy? Its not like the UK had a choice. We're you expecting them to go all Hawaii on the situation and just annex it?

The government they made the contract with didn't even exist anymore. The Qing Empire made that contract with the UK. Independence or just keeping HK in the UK both make at least as much sense as giving it to a country that didn't even exist when the contract was formed.

> The Qing Empire made that contract with the UK.

You really want to set the precedent that regime change voids all international agreements, rather than obligations and rights under them passing to successor regimes?

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#172

Hong Kong as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) instead of a Special Administrative Region (SAR) would be an easy transition. Although I don't see it more appealing than other SEZ's Shanghai's Free Trade Zone or the entire Hainan Province. But the consolidation of existing companies and operations in Hong Kong would still be pretty unique, its uniqueness still not that relevant. For regional price discovery it would be us…

HK has the inertia of having lots preexisting international HQs there. Any takers on how many of those will move out over the coming decades? > or < 50% of them?

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#173
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government they made the contract with didn't even exist anymore. The Qing Empire made that contract with the UK. Independence or just keeping HK in the UK both make at least as much sense as giving it to a country that didn't even exist when the contract was formed.

Then Honk Hong should have been given back to the Republic of China (Taiwan) which is the direct successor of the Qing empire, not the PRC. RPC is not a successor of Qing nor ROC since ROC still exists.

The UK already formally recognized the PRC as the sole government of China, and, as such the successor to ROC and Qing interests. Sure, this was in large part about who has the most guns, but it's not like the UK control of HK itself was a result of a free and uncoerced agreement of the parties, either.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the authoritarian right which includes US liberals. The left doesn't even exist worldwide except in extremely small insignificant numbers pumped up by media to create new red scare conditions among the population. The left has been crushed for the last 40+ years by the authoritarian right and has absolutely no backbone. The authoritarian right runs the gig, the authoritarian right creates the violence. Edit: DSA,…

Laughable. The ways things are going currently, if you don't agree with the left on things you can lose your job. You can't voice an opinion that is different or you get labeled a racist. You can see this every day in plain sight.

When the market doesn't like your actions, the market makes you pay. That's how the system works. Regulating that market response seems like the actual authoritarian move.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#175

There was an idea floating around in 1989 to build a "New Hong Kong" in Scotland! https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/11920027.scotland-could-... Edit: I'm sure we could find a bit that was fairly similar to the scenery of Hong Kong, though not sure we can do much about the weather....

Great initiative, given that most of the immigrants are educated, experienced professionals, and have English as their second native language. Definitely, democratic progressive countries should compete for the right to host Hong Kongers.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#176
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said “try”. Rest of the EU might have said “no”, but now the EU hasn’t got any more reason to listen to the UK than to listen to, say, Australia’s opinion about Hong Kong. Then there is also the reduced power of the EU post-Brexit. Just because Brexit costs the UK influence doesn’t mean it doesn’t cost the EU too — without the UK, the EU is only about 85% of the GDP of the other two big trade giants (the USA and…

But there's no reason that an independent UK and the EU cannot work together where their interests align, is there? The idea that it's all or nothing is nothing more than yet another canard put about by anti-Brexit protagonists.

> there's no reason that an independent UK and the EU cannot work together where their interests align

But there is also no reason why they should even try, whereas before there was.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#177

I'm super curious to see how this will turn out for the UK. A lot of the comments here mention HK's relative high education, English proficiency and wealth. If those are true: the upside will be easier settlement into the UK, maybe increased entrepreneurship. The downsides are: driving up local housing prices, increased competition for jobs. If those are false, the UK may experience an influx of lower-wage labor and…

> tl;dr: How do I invest in British real estate?

Builders (e.g. Persimmon) and LSE-listed investment trusts buying land for development, assuming you mean residential.

If you mean commercial, there's a wider choice of funds, developers, and management companies.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#178

I'm super curious to see how this will turn out for the UK. A lot of the comments here mention HK's relative high education, English proficiency and wealth. If those are true: the upside will be easier settlement into the UK, maybe increased entrepreneurship. The downsides are: driving up local housing prices, increased competition for jobs. If those are false, the UK may experience an influx of lower-wage labor and…

And you assume that China will allow an orderly evacuation and allow HK residents to leave with their capital intact.

This might be more like the ethnic cleansing that happened in Kenya and Uganda - where people where forced out leaving behind a lot of assets.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#179

I'm super curious to see how this will turn out for the UK. A lot of the comments here mention HK's relative high education, English proficiency and wealth. If those are true: the upside will be easier settlement into the UK, maybe increased entrepreneurship. The downsides are: driving up local housing prices, increased competition for jobs. If those are false, the UK may experience an influx of lower-wage labor and…

I think you would have to be slightly crazy to invest in UK property right now. COVID is leading to mass lay offs across many sectors and destroying what little was left of the high streets.

Add in lots more working from home - property values will probably, IMO, level out across the country rather than being concentrated heavily in the south east, London and major cities as less people need to commute. Why live close to London if you don’t need to travel in everyday? Businesses will then undoubtedly scale down or reduce the burden of commercial property with more homeworkers, etc. leading to an increase in available real estate, etc. Just my opinion.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#180
post #4

US has as well to some extent [1]. I hope the entire Anglosphere follows suit (CAN/AUS/NZ). [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-police-make-first-sec...

Aus and NZ are still in futile COVID suppression mode, so they are unlikely to be taking in a million Hongkies any time soon. I'm sure they'll get around to it though - it will reinflate their property markets which have sagged a bit this year.

Arrivals from overseas face mandatory quarantine, so I don’t see how COVID is an obstacle.

I think the Australian government is worried about further deterioration in the Australia-China relationship. I think they’ll do something if UK/US/Canada/NZ make the first move.

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