Many Hong Kongers are considering emigration
Political and economic uncertainties may drive a new exodus
IN SEPTEMBER 2018 Matthew Torne, a British filmmaker, released the third in his trilogy of documentariesabouthongkong. “Last Exit To Kai Tak” is a bittersweet chronicle of five Hong Kongers who, after the disappointment of the prodemocracy “umbrella” protests of 2014, grapple with what is left for them in the city, as its liberties are chipped away by an increasingly bellicose Chinese government. The burning question, as one character puts it, is this: “revolution or emigration?”
For many people, that question has now been answered. At 11pm on June 30th, one hour before the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule, the Communist Party imposed a national-security law designed to squash Hong Kong into submission. The city’s reputation as a haven of free speech within China disappeared overnight, along with the “one country, two systems” framework set up in 1997. In 2014 Communist Party leaders waited for the protesters to lose steam. But by 2020 they had run out of patience.
Several people were arrested for violating the new law on July 1st, but most have been dissuaded from taking to the streets. Then, on July 29th, four students aged 16 to 21 were detained for“incitingsecession”onsocialmedia. They included Tony Chung, former leader of Studentlocalism, a protest group that had called for Hong Kong’s independencefromchina.onjuly30th Hong Kong’s government said it had disqualified 12 pro-democracy figures fromstandinginelectionforthelegislativecouncil(legco),hongkong’s(until now) semi-democratic parliament. As the euphoria of the protests has dissipated and the new reality has sunk in, the focus for many Hong Kongers has shifted—just as it did a generation before, as the handover loomed—to emigration.
It is not just the crackdown that is pushing people to leave. Hong Kong was already one of the world’s most expensive places to live. It ranked above New York, Tokyo and London in the latest cost of living survey carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister company of The Economist. Then came the covid-19 pandemic. The economy shrank by 9% year-onyear in the second quarter of 2020. On July 29th Carrie Lam, the territory’s chief executive, warned the city was “on the verge of a large-scale community outbreak”. On July 31st Mrs Lam, announced what she called the “difficult decision” to delay the Legco elections, citing the territory’s spike in coronavirus cases. She gave Hong Kong a generous year to get to grips with it, promising an election on September 5th, 2021. A poll by the Chinese University of Hong Kong conducted in May, after China announced its intention to impose the law, found that half of 15- to 24-year-olds were considering leaving.
“In Hong Kong people learn to survive, not live,” says Thea, a 23-year-old who plans to emigrate. “Even for a middle-class person like me, having my own flat is like an impossible mission.”
Would-be émigrés have many destinations to choose from. Canada is home to more Hong Kong-born people than any other OECD country. More than 275,000 of them emigrated there between 1989 and 1997. A residence permit can be secured by an investment of just C$150,000 ($112,000), a sum easily covered by the sale of a pad in Hong Kong, where the average house price is $1.2m, according to CBRE, a property firm. Australia is offering five-year visa extensions to Hong Kongers already in the country, “with a pathway to permanent residency”. An investment visa is pricier, at around A$1.5m ($1.1m).
Other avenues are also now available. Taiwan has opened an office to help Hong Kongers resettle. Between January and May, there were 3,352 Hong Kong applicants for permanent residence in Taiwan, double the figure in the same period for 2019. Cultural similarity and affordability make Taiwan a popular choice, says Roy Lam, an immigration consultant. A recent poll found that Taiwan was the most popular destination for 50% of Hong Kongers considering emigration.