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Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#241

Post by pgcj_poster »

growlist wrote: post #130
crobertsbmw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading Open Borders by Bryan Cahlan, I’m convinced that if there is a burden on the host country it’s temporary. Long term, I think the host country has much more to gain than to lose.

So then by this logic, we should be attempting to have every person on earth living in the UK, since all migration is positive, right? Or is there an upper limit to the desirable population of the UK before life becomes intolerable?

The UK is physically large enough that everyone on Earth actually could live there with a reasonable amount of space to themselves. The issue would be feeding everyone, since even now the UK needs to import its food, and it's not clear who would grow it if literally everyone lived in Britain. But because of how markets work, as more people moved to the UK, prices would go up and people would have more incentive to stay in their own country where they could grow food for export.

Also, if it's population you're concerned about, shouldn't you also worry about people having babies?

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#242

Post by notahacker »

nly wrote: post #87
sampo wrote: post #67

68% of conservative voters, 71% of labour voters, and 77% of libdem voters support this. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/0...

Surprising isn't it, given how much of a driving force EU immigration was in the Brexit debate.

I think most people accurately assume that not many Hong Kong citizens will come, and none of the focus of recent anti-immigrant sentiment has been on ethnic Chinese people.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#243

Post by free_rms »

skissane wrote: post #214
free_rms wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK running HK in the first place was stealing from China. They originally got it as part of the peace settlement from the Opium Wars, then signed the 99-year lease later when the Qing empire was in terminal decline and unable to resist.

If UK had not switched recognition from ROC to PRC, they could have returned it to ROC instead. UK could have demanded a lease renewal from PRC as the price for switching recognition. Instead they just got some “alliance” against the Soviets and it is questionable what that actually delivered.

If you're gonna go pro-colonialist might makes right, that's your prerogative, but then you're just gonna have to eat it on the fact that the PRC had a lot more might nearby.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#244

Post by ryan_j_naughton »

sasum wrote: post #148
ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supporting HK in gaining independence wouldn't have been an act of Colonialism. It would have been enabling self determination of a population. Colonialism is "the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically." Giving the HK people independence is literally the opposite of colonialism. In contrast, the new law by by…

The CPC cannot be colonialist against Hong Kong. HK has been part of China for thousands of years and is ethnically Chinese. Hong Kong exists today because Britain used military power to force the Chinese government to import opium. In the process they annexed Hong Kong. Not to mention, HKers DO NOT want independence. In a recent poll only 20% of HKers desire independence.

While HKers are Chinese, they speak an entirely different language than Beijing that isn't even mutually intelligible.

This is part of the manipulation of the narrative by the Chinese government. It refuses to even recognize that these are truly different languages and calls them "varieties of Chinese" or "dialects of Chinese" when Cantonese or Taiwanese are more distant from Mandarin than the Romance languages are from one another. Then it tries to pretend like there are only a single people in China and is systematically eradicating minority communities.[1]

Thus, Mandarin political domination over other Chinese communities is imperialism at the very least, if not colonialism. Imperialism and colonialism aren't really that different from one another.[2]

Additionally, every group always like to claim the land that they had at their maximal imperial state. But borders change over time. People move around -- even Taiwan was only recently colonized by Chinese in the 17th/18th century in large numbers and before and after that was owned by other empires. Another example is when the Dutch decolonized Indonesia. The Dutch were simply replaced by the new "foreign imperialists" of the central Indonesian government, which the Balinese people and other such peoples of Indonesia considered a different group than themselves.

Furthermore, simply a region has been part of a broader empire for centuries or even millennia, doesn't mean isn't still being oppressed by an imperialist empire. The Russian Empire, Spanish oppression of other provinces and minorities for hundreds of years, etc.

Thus perhaps instead of focusing on the colonialism part we should focus on the imperialism part. The aim should be to empower self determination of a people and enabling them to be free of oppressive, imperial influence.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53220713

[2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#245

Post by skissane »

free_rms wrote: post #243
skissane wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If UK had not switched recognition from ROC to PRC, they could have returned it to ROC instead. UK could have demanded a lease renewal from PRC as the price for switching recognition. Instead they just got some “alliance” against the Soviets and it is questionable what that actually delivered.

If you're gonna go pro-colonialist might makes right, that's your prerogative, but then you're just gonna have to eat it on the fact that the PRC had a lot more might nearby.

I don’t see how handing HK over to ROC would have been “pro-colonialist”.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#246

Post by genoapol »

starfallg wrote: post #151
chosenbreed37 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure we need to impede authoritarianism or any other form of government. It is more than likely that level of investment that has gone into China over the last few decades have put the country in the a strong position. But I think the CCP and the Chinese people in general can take a lot of credit for what they have achieved. And to my point...if the end result is rising incomes for all, better life expectancy…

>if the end result is rising incomes for all, better life expectancy and an overall better quality of life does it matter that it came about through an authoritarian regime? And when this growth ends, what will happen? An authoritarian system is able to withstand challenges with the full power of the state behind it. People that dissent are crushed, and many times the people that dissent do so with the most honourabl…

>Just because China is able to catch-up some of the growth that it completely missed out on due to the turmoil of the Communist revolution and the turbulent 50s and 60s, doesn't validate this system one bit. Other countries were ahead of China, with more growth and sustainability, minus the cruelty.

The most powerful countries in the world were literally coasting on stolen Chinese wealth for 100 years of so. When the UK couldn't coast anymore, it lost world reserve currency status.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#248

Post by tomp »

koheripbal wrote: post #229
nly wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprising isn't it, given how much of a driving force EU immigration was in the Brexit debate.

No - because these are RICH Asian migrants, not POOR North African and Syrian migrants. It's a combination of differential racism and elitism.

> "differential racism"

So basically the existing word "racism" didn't fit (because racist Brits would hate Asian HKers just as much as brown Syrians and black Africans) so you invented a new completely concept but conveniently attached the word "racism" to it for maximal emotional impact?

Despicable.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#249

Post by nailer »

arethuza wrote: post #140
ksec wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kind of depends, immigration wasn't a big part of it from talking with many business partners. Many just dont like the idea rules are being made in Brussels.

The claim that Turkey was soon going to join the EU (which isn't going to happen) and flood the country with Turkish immigrants was a major component of vote leave messaging: "Turkey/NHS/£350 million". Edit: FYI Dominic Cummings actually blogged about the important of Turkey to their success: https://dominiccummings.com/2017/01/09/on-the-referendum-21-...

To be fair Angela Merkel flooded Germany with millions of immigrants from the middle East.

Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

#250

Post by magicsmoke »

99_00 wrote: post #239
sterlind wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the dad stays an astronaut, he will get lost in space once China finishes engulfing HK. I don't think HKers are going to be as worried about reducing their tax rates as staying free right now..

The whole reason for getting Canadian citizenship is for the day that China engulfs HK and they want to leave. China isn't going to restrict the movement of hundreds of thousands of foreigners legally living in HK. 300,000 Canadians living in HK right now.

Yep, the CCP is going after political dissidents. Expats that keep their head down while making money in HK aren't going to be affected.
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