If I was China, I would love for the US and the UK to take the law-aware and dissident people off my hands.
Unless they leave with their business and assets.
Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents
301–310 of 409 posts
Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
perceived lack of control.
There’s nothing “perceived” about it—the UK was forced to admit any “EU citizen” who wanted to come and immediately grant them permanent residency, which already represents a fundamental loss of control.
Why are you putting "EU citizen" in scare quotes? It's a perfectly well-defined concept.
The UK was certainly not obliged to immediately grant them permanent residency. See e.g. here https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/residence-ri...
Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
perceived lack of control.
How could the UK control it?
We could have opted in to stricter controls on migration from Eastern Europe, but no-one wanted to at the time, as there would have been no benefit to doing so.
https://theconversation.com/the-huge-political-cost-of-blair...
Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Racism works fine for what is described, there is nothing about racism which requires it to be “my race good, all other races equally bad”. “Differential racism” is a perfectly good way of distinguishing a multitiered racial heirarchy from a binary one. Though I think nationalism may be at least as much of a factor as race-based differentiation. (That is, that nationalism in the context of colonial history is why HKe…
“Racism” is not a very good term for privileging non-white immigrants from former colonies over white European immigrants.
Racism is a perfectly fine term for weighting East Asian race less negatively than other non-white races in a function with multiple other factors besides race, resulting in certain East Asian immigrants being favored over white European immigrants.
Though, as explained already in GP, I think nationalism is the more relevant factor here, whether or not racism (binary or differential) is also involved (which at some level it obviously is.)
Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents
#305Earlier 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.
> 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?
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Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents
#306Earlier 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.
They may be disappointed when they discover the rules aren't made in Brussels because the UK joined the EU, but because it's the UK's largest trading partner and the largest trade bloc in the world. Brexit will simply make their position worse.
> but because it's the UK's largest trading partner and the largest trade bloc in the world.
The North American trade bloc (NAFTA/USMCA) is actually slightly bigger by both GDP and population, though the EU is, yes, the UK’s biggest trade partner.
Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s nothing “perceived” about it—the UK was forced to admit any “EU citizen” who wanted to come and immediately grant them permanent residency, which already represents a fundamental loss of control.
Why are you putting "EU citizen" in scare quotes? It's a perfectly well-defined concept. The UK was certainly not obliged to immediately grant them permanent residency. See e.g. here https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/residence-ri...
While there was no obligation to grant permanent residency, the criteria that would allow removal before the five years (or two years in some cases) are narrow. If someone had a job and in some cases when they didn’t, it was impossible to remove them unless they posed a serious threat. That is, in fact, a significant limitation on the control the UK could exert over immigration from the EU.
Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents
#308If I was China, I would love for the US and the UK to take the law-aware and dissident people off my hands.
It will disproportionately take away the more wealthy and better educated. The majority of HKers live in public housing, pay no tax and are unlikely to have the means to live in the UK since there will be no recourse to public funds. This level of brain drain, as in the other mass migration events away from HK, could trigger the government to loosen their grip.
> It will disproportionately take away the more wealthy and better educated.
Which for Hong Kong as the universe of analysis would be a travesty, but for China is probably not a significant consideration against removing that population as a source of unrest which can spread beyond HK.
Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are you putting "EU citizen" in scare quotes? It's a perfectly well-defined concept. The UK was certainly not obliged to immediately grant them permanent residency. See e.g. here https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/residence-ri...
While there was no obligation to grant permanent residency, the criteria that would allow removal before the five years (or two years in some cases) are narrow. If someone had a job and in some cases when they didn’t, it was impossible to remove them unless they posed a serious threat. That is, in fact, a significant limitation on the control the UK could exert over immigration from the EU.
Well, yes, there was freedom of movement. I'm not sure why being unable to remove someone who has a job is so terrible. We could have chosen to put a cap on migration from relatively poor EU countries, but we chose not to.
Re: Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents
#310[deleted]