Was British Hong Kong effectively an apartheid state?

RasTa

RasTa wrote: »

Yeah I know, the Brexit lads won't like it.

I think this is exactly what "Brexit lads" would love. Educated, peaceful, productive, hard working immigrants from a similar capitalist democracy with a historical connection to the UK, with English lanuguage skills. These are the type of immigrants any country would love.

cryptocurrency

Deleted User wrote: »

I think this is exactly what "Brexit lads" would love. Educated, peaceful, productive, hard working immigrants from a similar capitalist democracy with a historical connection to the UK, with English lanuguage skills. These are the type of immigrants any country would love.

That is the kinda delusion so many. The HKers they want aren't coming.

lucernarian

cryptocurrency wrote: »

It isn't the majority, it is far from it.

There was many more who were strongly against the protests. Also, what do they seriously expected to be achieved?

HK is China, there is no question on that. If you start digging into the historical deals then you could argue that HK island was signed over to the British completely and the New Territories were leased and now have been returned and are legally fully part of China, under any agreement. If the UK want to contest any agreement made with China on HK island has been broken then go ahead. You will find an island with a population of around 50000 per sq km, no airport and many other key services and surrounded by one of the worlds two biggest and powerful nations on earth. I really don't see what the end game is here for the protestors. HK Island, without the New Territoires, where it is, is pretty inhabitable.

HK's position as a financial hub is geographical and without a good relationship with China is doesn't have that much going for it. Shenzhen, with it's 11m people, now has a bigger economy than Denmark and step in to cover many of HKs functions.

This is literally copy pasted CCP policy on Hong Kong.

cryptocurrency

dwayneshintzy wrote: »

The landowning cabal are pro-Beijing. They are not the protestors.

I'd really question how much you actually know about Hong Kong based on your posts. It seems mostly half baked conspiracies.

No, not at all. The landowning class are the HK established class, who fear a creeping force against their monopoly on the place. You have a very blue peter view of HK. Beijing just wants stability there and that means housing reform. HK is not that important and is less so as the rest of China develops.

We should do a year on year chart of Shenzhen v Hong Kong 2000 to date. You will get the picture.

The HK the western romantics dream off is gone, it can never return. The HK being richer, bigger and more powerful then east Asian rival cities is gone too, never to return.

Someone needs to sit the Yellow flag crowd down and talk to them like grown-ups. Explain it slowly. All the tantrums in the world won't have you ever retuning to the days where they took a snobish pride out of being Chinese from HK while their mainland brothers lived in Maoist poverty.

The will have to get used to mainlanders coming to HK, shopping, being able to buy and sell on wealth terms and then shoot off back to Shanghai/Beijing/Suzhou etc. after a few days

cryptocurrency

lucernarian wrote: »

This is literally copy pasted CCP policy on Hong Kong.

Link? Where, because you don't like the facts?

lucernarian

cryptocurrency wrote: »

Link? Where, because you don't like the facts?

The facts lol, brought to you by the Chinese Communist Party

Edit: I'm curious as to what your background is, with the terminology and "mainlanders" etc. The only people I've ever heard say "they better get used to mainlanders visiting Hong Kong" are indignant CCP supporters from the "people's" Republic. Just my 2c of course.

biko

cryptocurrency wrote: »

That is the kinda delusion so many. The HKers they want aren't coming.

How do you know?

Who do you envision coming to UK from HK?

Hong Kongers already in the UK who are involved in helping others relocate say many of the early applicants tend to be educated middle-class people, often with young families, who have enough liquidity to finance their move. SRC
This confirms what I said in an earlier post and is just logical.



Here is one family that have made the journey (anecdotal I know).
The dad works remotely for a Chinese electronics company based in Shenzhen, the Chinese city just over the border from Hong Kong.
SRC
"There is a certain number of people who do not want to leave, particularly the young. They would rather die in Hong Kong," said Mr Lo.
"I have a lot of clients who fight with their kids because the children don't want to emigrate. They say: 'Why should I leave? I should try my best to change this place'."

Marcos

Well in the 80's the Thatcher government was looking at settling a load of Hong Kongers in Derry where they could also set up their own city. A Foreign Office report stated that:

A huge influx of Chinese nationals from Hong Kong would contribute to a political settlement in the North ‘by greatly outnumbering the acrimonious nationalist and unionist populations.

But calling it The Replantation of Northern Ireland From Hong Kong wasn't the best idea. :eek:

Anyway, a version of this plan resurfaced last year with Ivan Keo of the Victoria Harbour Group pushing the idea of building a new city south of Dundalk.

Mr Keo’s basic requirement is that the city must be close to motorways, seaport and airports and, so far, Dundalk seems to be the most attractive option for his new urban settlement -largely because of its location, midway between Belfast and Dublin.

Of course, the Chinese immigrants who would live in this new, semi-independent international / Irish city would have to be seriously wealthy, motived by business interests and keen to stay out of Communist China’s clutches.

According to Ivan Keo, about 15,000 Hong Kong residents are prepared to make the move to Ireland and he says that, after 20 years, around 100,000 people would be living in a new Irish city.
The penny also is dropping that should Hong Kong come under a hard-line Chinese regime, a sharp increase in the number of wealthy Chinese seeking a home in this country is very likely.

Which, in turn, raises this question: what if there’s a mass movement of thousands of Hong Kong people seeking a new life here, and not only the super-rich? Would Ireland encourage such a development?

Independent of the Keo plan, Chinese nationals have been expressing an interest in living in Ireland and auctioneers have commented on the small but growing number of Hong Kongers purchasing top-of-the-range luxury homes in this country.

Many of these people, of course, would not be refugees in the strict sense of the word, but wealthy Hong Kongers who have the cash to put down roots in this country.

I don't know if it'll ever get off the ground, but someone's flying a kite here.

dwayneshintzy

biko wrote: »

I'd be more inclined to trust your comments if you backed up with some sources.

Well "land owning cabal" isn't the words I would have used, as I was quoting another poster. But sure, here's some links;


Raymond Kwok, director of Sun Hung Kai Properties, is a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference


Li Ka Shing in favour of National Security Law


Significant donations to Carrie Lam, including from Lee Shau Kee


Article on developers opposed to protests

dwayneshintzy

cryptocurrency wrote: »

No, not at all. The landowning class are the HK established class, who fear a creeping force against their monopoly on the place. You have a very blue peter view of HK. Beijing just wants stability there and that means housing reform. HK is not that important and is less so as the rest of China develops.

We should do a year on year chart of Shenzhen v Hong Kong 2000 to date. You will get the picture.

The HK the western romantics dream off is gone, it can never return. The HK being richer, bigger and more powerful then east Asian rival cities is gone too, never to return.

Someone needs to sit the Yellow flag crowd down and talk to them like grown-ups. Explain it slowly. All the tantrums in the world won't have you ever retuning to the days where they took a snobish pride out of being Chinese from HK while their mainland brothers lived in Maoist poverty.

The will have to get used to mainlanders coming to HK, shopping, being able to buy and sell on wealth terms and then shoot off back to Shanghai/Beijing/Suzhou etc. after a few days

What does a "blue peter view" of Hong Kong mean? I've lived here for 6 years. Your view on protestors is indistinguishable from Beijing propaganda; how many Hong Kongers do you actually know? You're making sweeping statements and I'd love to know what you'd back them up on.


You said earlier that "far from the majority" supported the protests. How can you possibly make that claim?

cryptocurrency

dwayneshintzy wrote: »

What does a "blue peter view" of Hong Kong mean? I've lived here for 6 years. Your view on protestors is indistinguishable from Beijing propaganda; how many Hong Kongers do you actually know? You're making sweeping statements and I'd love to know what you'd back them up on.


You said earlier that "far from the majority" supported the protests. How can you possibly make that claim?

Because if you lived there you'd know. Wouldn't you?

If you do live there, please enlighten us what you think they want, as a majority, and where do they see as an end game or where they want HK to be in?

Come on, this will be good..

dwayneshintzy

Are you saying the Five Demands are bollocks, or are you just not familiar with them?

1. Full withdrawal of the extradition bill
2. Retraction of the characterisation of the 12 June 2019 protests as "riots"
3. Release and exoneration of arrested protesters
4. Establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into police behaviour
5. Resignation of Carrie Lam and universal suffrage for the Legislative Council and the chief executive elections

Have a look at the District Council elections in 2019 in the wake of the protests; Link

Are you telling me that those results don't show a majority in favour of the protest movement? What do they show, then?

cryptocurrency

cryptocurrency wrote: »

That is a letter from the UK foreign secretary to the UK home secretary at the time with a copy going to Maggie who was PM. This isn't low-level stuff.

Other way round ... it's from the Home Secretary to the Foreign Secretary.

cryptocurrency

dwayneshintzy wrote: »

Are you saying the Five Demands are bollocks, or are you just not familiar with them?

1. Full withdrawal of the extradition bill
2. Retraction of the characterisation of the 12 June 2019 protests as "riots"
3. Release and exoneration of arrested protesters
4. Establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into police behaviour
5. Resignation of Carrie Lam and universal suffrage for the Legislative Council and the chief executive elections

Have a look at the District Council elections in 2019 in the wake of the protests; Link

Are you telling me that those results don't show a majority in favour of the protest movement? What do they show, then?

The 5 points are very vague.

HK is part of China, it is perfectly normal for parts of the same country to have such treaties. The only way for them to refuse to have such a deal is if HK was not part of China and that is not a serious idea.

If HK was independent, are you talking HK island or do they expect the leased new territories to be seized from China too? How do you propose to work?
So independence and land grab from their giant powerful new neighbour too.
I say independence as complete universal suffrage will require a complete and independent disconnect from the PRC, even from being a SAR, if not you will always have a governor appointed by the head state, which is the PRC.

So there you are all now, on your little independent island, surrounded by a giant, all around you. 50000 people per sq km, no airport, a shot economy and no preferable trade access to the giant PRC economy. Massive capital flight. You've lost the support of the police force.

What then? What will these newly elected officials do on day one with their released protestors, no police, no airport and the new east Asia Gaza strip...what's the plan? Call Unicef? Who else?

cryptocurrency

b0nk1e wrote: »

Other way round ... it's from the Home Secretary to the Foreign Secretary.

Sorry yes, of course, it would be the home secretary sending the message to the top foreign diplomat to make sure none of those Chinese manages to get back to the UK.

dwayneshintzy

cryptocurrency wrote: »

The 5 points are very vague.

HK is part of China, it is perfectly normal for parts of the same country to have such treaties. The only way for them to refuse to have such a deal is if HK was not part of China and that is not a serious idea.

If HK was independent, are you talking HK island or do they expect the leased new territories to be seized from China too? How do you propose to work?
So independence and land grab from their giant powerful new neighbour too.
I say independence as complete universal suffrage will require a complete and independent disconnect from the PRC, even from being a SAR, if not you will always have a governor appointed by the head state, which is the PRC.

So there you are all now, on your little independent island, surrounded by a giant, all around you. 50000 people per sq km, no airport, a shot economy and no preferable trade access to the giant PRC economy. Massive capital flight. You've lost the support of the police force.

What then? What will these newly elected officials do on day one with their released protestors, no police, no airport and the new east Asia Gaza strip...what's the plan? Call Unicef? Who else?

Vague, are you for real?!?! And why are you talking about independence? Not a single one of those demands includes independence.

The governor appointed by the head state? Are you aware of who the Chief Executive is, how they're elected, or what they do? Because it doesn't seem like you are. Are you familiar with LegCo and functional constituencies? Because it doesn't seem like you are.

You've built up a massive straw man here, I have not mentioned independence and the vast, VAST majority of Hong Kongers do not advocate independence (one reason being that it's literally illegal to even mention it now).

lucernarian

dwayneshintzy wrote: »

What does a "blue peter view" of Hong Kong mean? I've lived here for 6 years. Your view on protestors is indistinguishable from Beijing propaganda; how many Hong Kongers do you actually know? You're making sweeping statements and I'd love to know what you'd back them up on.


You said earlier that "far from the majority" supported the protests. How can you possibly make that claim?

I'm not sure there's any point engaging with any CCP propaganda merchants - the more you provide the 50 cent army with rebuttals, the more they learn how to counteract them in future "discussions". The arrogance of their distorted world view they purvey is supreme. You can see it in the English news articles from Xinhua and Global Times, and they show up more and more on social media and discussion forums...

cryptocurrency

dwayneshintzy wrote: »

Vague, are you for real?!?! And why are you talking about independence? Not a single one of those demands includes independence.

The governor appointed by the head state? Are you aware of who the Chief Executive is, how they're elected, or what they do? Because it doesn't seem like you are. Are you familiar with LegCo and functional constituencies? Because it doesn't seem like you are.

You've built up a massive straw man here, I have not mentioned independence and the vast, VAST majority of Hong Kongers do not advocate independence (one reason being that it's literally illegal to even mention it now).

Ok, so you expect a chief executive to be potentially antagonistic to Beijing if that is what is elected. How do you think that will work out? How do you expect it too?

dwayneshintzy

cryptocurrency wrote: »

Ok, so you expect a chief executive to be potentially antagonistic to Beijing if that is what is elected. How do you think that will work out? How do you expect it too?

I haven't said I expected anything. You asked what the protestors were protesting about, as if it wasn't clear. And then laughably claimed that their demands are "vague".


Any Chief Executive would be bound to the Basic Law, and that's before even a consideration that someone who's antagonistic to Beijing would be elected. But if we're going to be asking questions here; do you believe that Carrie Lam is in any way a fit leader?

dwayneshintzy

lucernarian wrote: »

I'm not sure there's any point engaging with any CCP propaganda merchants - the more you provide the 50 cent army with rebuttals, the more they learn how to counteract them in future "discussions". The arrogance of their distorted world view they purvey is supreme. You can see it in the English news articles from Xinhua and Global Times, and they show up more and more on social media and discussion forums...

Maybe true, though I don't that many of them will have ended up on boards.ie. I just think that there are plenty of people in Ireland and elsewhere who are willing to buy the CCP line when it comes to Hong Kong.....they'll often support Putin as well, and will see the CIA as being behind every single anti-authoritarian protest in the world.

cryptocurrency

dwayneshintzy wrote: »

I haven't said I expected anything. You asked what the protestors were protesting about, as if it wasn't clear. And then laughably claimed that their demands are "vague".


Any Chief Executive would be bound to the Basic Law, and that's before even a consideration that someone who's antagonistic to Beijing would be elected. But if we're going to be asking questions here; do you believe that Carrie Lam is in any way a fit leader?

I think she is pragmatic

dwayneshintzy

cryptocurrency wrote: »

I think she is pragmatic

Pragmatic!?!?! In what way?


She's an absolute disaster in every respect. She's up from her historic low approval rating of 18, but still only sitting at 32 these days (in a city that has done relatively well during the pandemic).



She's useful to Beijing as a lightning rod, and that's about it. She's absolutely useless, arrogant and out of touch.

cryptocurrency

cryptocurrency wrote: »

The 5 points are very vague.

That's hilarious.

I don't know how much more specific they could possibly be....

lucernarian

dwayneshintzy wrote: »

Maybe true, though I don't that many of them will have ended up on boards.ie. I just think that there are plenty of people in Ireland and elsewhere who are willing to buy the CCP line when it comes to Hong Kong.....they'll often support Putin as well, and will see the CIA as being behind every single anti-authoritarian protest in the world.

Yeah, China will go to extreme lengths to prevent notions about freedom and people's rights and the rule of law from coming from that "crappy little island" to their benighted population. And their respect for international treaties (like with the UK regarding Hong Kong) or the sea borders of its neighbours is equally laughable. One country, two systems was killed off by the president for life.

cryptocurrency

lucernarian wrote: »

Yeah, China will go to extreme lengths to prevent notions about freedom and people's rights and the rule of law from coming from that "crappy little island" to their benighted population. And their respect for international treaties (like with the UK regarding Hong Kong) or the sea borders of its neighbours is equally laughable. One country, two systems was killed off by the president for life.

What treaties, if they really had a case against them the UK would surely make a move.

https://giphy.com/gifs/tZrvnMaSqSAgsrfJMj/html5

Marcusm

dwayneshintzy wrote: »

There will be a mix of Hong Kongers who want to go to the UK. The idea that they'll all be highly qualified, wealthy immigrants is a fantasy. But equally, it's ridiculous to think that highly skilled people in HK don't see the UK as an attractive option. Singapore isn't a consideration for most HK people looking to leave; the UK and Canada are basically the top 2 for most people.

Highly skilled and wealthy Hongkongers will, for the most part, have focused on obtaining citizenship in the U.K., Canada, Australia and the US over the past 24 years. I have spent a decent amount of time in HK since 2003 and still hold a residents card, albeit not a permanent one.

Wealthy (and often not so wealthy) HK children have gone to boarding school and university overseas for decades. Most, in my experience, will have ensured that they then obtained graduate visas and remained overseas long enough to get green cards, indefinite leave to remain or citizenship. This especially applied to those who planned to return. Most retain the foreign citizenship alongside HKSAR nationality (if ethnically Chinese). Some of the ones who obtained US citizenship often abandoned it to avoid paying high U.K. taxes. These are escape routes independent of the improved opportunities for BN(O) passport holders. I recall statistics that 8% of HO residents were foreign. The numbers were subsequently investigated to show that the bulk of these were dual nationals rather than expats. (Canadians forming the largest group IIRC.)

The thread title is about apartheid in Hong Kong. To the extent this status exists, it applies to the “domestic helper” category of visa granted by HKSAR. These are the visas given to the 390,000 Filipina, Thai, Indonesian (mostly) women who work 6 x 16 hour days for little remuneration (even by HK standards which maintains a pension scheme for these workers at least). This is more than 5% of the population and these visas never grant any settled or permanent residency status.

That is the true apartheid status in HK (if one exists).