Leaving China

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>If I were to live in Asia, it might have once included Hong Kong because of its unique British history

OTOH this attitude is why PRC finally calibrating HK for PRC nationals/one-way permits instead of privileged foreign expats was long overdue. Mainlanders I know in HK find the new mix PRC/HK mix more preferable than UK/HK, less visible discrimination etc. Local nativism still exists but less overt than pre NSL. Applies to the mainland as well - first exodus of privileged discontent expats who thought they were indispensable in the mid 2010s - only to be replaced by qualified nationals. Think of it as PRC fixing their H1B problem. Something many in tech have comparably aligned opinions on.

E: over comment limit @charlieyu1

That's ~2 years worth of one way permits from PRC. Xi can snap his fingers and send 1M unemployed college educated mainlanders to HK tomorrow if he wants. Let's not pretend it's a big / existential loss, reality is PRC now has an abundance of talent who are much more deserving of living/running HK than most HKers who were merely privileged to be born in a city with constrained immigration requirements that puts mainland hukous system to shame. Under any reasonably fair system, HK should be treated like just ANY OTHER CHINESE CITY, like how under qualified people get squeezed out via gentrification in tier1 cities in every other country leading to local culture changes. It's not pretty, but it's how most of the world functions.

Ultimately HK "culture" is the result of undue privilege enforced by 2 systems that benefit locals and expats instead of 1B+ PRC nationals. Expats I get, because some expertise needs to be imported and you need foreigners in the country for track2 diplomacy. But unlike pre 2000s when PRC human capital was borderline North Korea, there's nothing particularly deserving about a person born and raised in HK anymore. If anything they are increasingly less deserving, with a particularly bad human capita / talent pool. HK _still_ some of the poorest tertiary education statistics by high income standards (~25% when it should be 40-50+%) to stay competitive. Meanwhile PRC is spitting out 8M+ higher-ed a year, there's no reason why HKers or expats should have priority over qualified mainlanders anymore. If HKers want to emigrate, go ahead, there's no shortage of deserving replacements in mainland with 100x more bodies to draw from. For mainlanders, continuing HK privilege simply doesn't make sense anymore.

If it’s that simple he will be relieved to here it. Frankly I’m not sure why it’s such a big deal either.

Vietnam seems much more open. Their internet is largely open and accessible. Even easy to register sims. They have no quarantine or vaccine requirements for entry or visa etc.

All in all much more open and light. Similarly in good company they would be fairly open about the government and problems etc.

It definately isnt on the same level of freedom as America but definitely didnt seem as repressive as china and i didnt see the will there to move that way. In fact they seem like they wanted to remain open for the financial benefits of doing business in the west.

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>China fits the bill

All those things may exist but sheer concentration of population = QoL / "dynamism" still gets very uncomfortable and cut throat. PRC pace = good cities with livable QoL mix rapidly develop until they're not. Hence you get expat commends like Chongqing reminds me of Shanghai in 2000s. On the otherhand, plenty of big cities at varying degrees of development to bounce around, but that's a very different life style.