Accepting Millions of Hong Kong Refugees Is A Win For All Involved
By: Kesh Anand
Tags: Hong Kong, News, World, UK, China

Accepting Millions of Hong Kong Refugees Is A Win For All Involved

Whether you are Australia, the UK, China or a Hong Kong denizen — we all have something to gain from these migrants

Beijing and Hong Kong appear to clash

Unless you've been under a rock — you’ll be aware that Hong Kong has been facing mass demonstrations and riots in recent times.

In response to this, China has ushered in a series of laws giving Beijing broad authority to intervene and curtail what it deems as recalcitrant behaviour.

This has been widely reported in the foreign press as dialling back civil liberties and being in breach of the agreement between Britain and China on not “changing things” for 50 years after the 1997 handover of the island back to Beijing.

With the passing of these laws — countries like the UK and Australia have pledged to create paths to permanent residency for potentially millions of Hong Kongers.

Whilst it may appear as an altruistic act — it is, in fact, beneficial for all parties involved: China; Australia and the UK; and the departing Hong Kong denizens themselves.

Let us consider each of their perspectives below.

The Australian/UK perspective:

Countries often measure success by GDP growth. Whilst ideally this would be achieved via productivity gains — often an “easier” way to achieve this is through population growth.

The challenge here is that fertility rates are 1.9 children per couple in Australia, and 1.7 in the UK — well below the replacement rate of 2.1. This means that without immigration — populations (and thus GDP) of these countries will decline.

Large scale migration is key to the perceived economic and political success of governments.

This explains, in part, why Angela Merkel’s Germany took in over a million Syrian refugees in 2016.

Now, while migrants, in general, can be good — what would make it even better is getting skilled migrants.

Hong Kong is a “developed” city-state. Thus the economic value of human capital is likely higher than say places which are largely agrarian.

Many are degree qualified knowledge workers (given Hong Kong is a financial services hub), and many more are part of the eco-system that supports them. Further — they will likely bring much of their financial capital along with them should they move countries.

There are few better places from which to get migrants from than Hong Kong.

The Chinese perspective:

While there is some furore from China around this — it is also quite the opportunity for them.

The people who leave Hong Kong would be a self-selected group of the most dissatisfied citizens.

Instead of having to worry about monitoring a potential fifth column of dissidents, this provides an easy way to get these folks out of Beijing’s hair for good.

Cuba did something to this effect during the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. Over 100,000 Cubans were allowed to leave the country for America — including many supposed “undesirables” such as convicted criminals, those who had been committed to mental institutions and members of the LGBT community.

To borrow a term from computer science: this acts almost as a honeypot.

The Hong Konger perspective:

This is pretty straight forward. Those with concerns about the current situation have an opportunity to move to somewhere they feel more content.

Those who stay behind, now living in a place without the critical mass of active dissenters — live in a city that is not routinely brought to a standstill by rioters.