Over the past two years, Hong Kong’s desire to emigrate has changed as Beijing has grown more assertive. More recently, the middle class, who can afford to emigrate, has gone from the planning stage at the beginning of the year to the point where they can just talk. This phenomenon has also been cited by reporters who have reviewed recent statistics. Respondents who were implementing their immigration plans said they had lost all confidence in Hong Kong’s political and financial system.
Rocky (Voice processed) : The original so called national security law was used to counter the opposition, plus the laws in Hong Kong are more and more like following China’s example, it feels like the rule of law no longer exists. I don’t have much confidence in the future.
Like Rocky (not his real name), many middle-class people have planned to emigrate from Hong Kong in 2019 due to the political uncertainty in Hong Kong, and are ready to move quickly after the implementation of the Hong Kong Security Act, including renewing the “British National (overseas) passport” commonly known as “BNO” and applying for offshore hukou. Rocky believes that after the port Security Act was enacted, it became clear that the current legislation is only aimed at suppressing dissent. The freezing of the bank accounts of former legislator Hui Chi-fung and his family has added to Rocky’s loss of confidence in Hong Kong’s long-cherished financial system.
Rocky: This isn’t just a political issue. It’s going to affect your money. It also prompted me to apply for an offshore account. In fact, I have applied for an offshore account a long time ago, but I haven’t paid any attention to it, and I will do something to manage the account later. Although I am not a celebrity, I share this concern.
The more unstable Hong Kong’s politics, the more Hong Kong people want to emigrate
Moderator: Please press the voting machine, in favor of 2878 votes, against one vote, abstention 6 votes, read out. Through!
It was around the time the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law was passed in July this year that some Hong Kong people lost heart.
Our correspondent looked at Google search trends and found that immigration-related keywords such as “immigrate to the UK”, “immigrate to Taiwan“, “immigrate to Australia” and “immigrate to Canada” were all popular searches. Another set of popular keywords related to offshore accounts included ‘offshore HSBC’, ‘offshore Standard Chartered’, ‘offshore Citibank’ and ‘offshore DBS’, all of which are foreign-owned banks in Hong Kong.
The reporter also found that in the “immigration” this group of keywords, all keywords during May 17 solstice 23 search rate jumped, when the “port area national security law” has been included in the agenda of the National People’s Congress; As for the “offshore account” category, all the individual keywords showed an upward trend during May 24, solstice and June 6, during which time the us secretary of state Pompeo indicated to the congress that Hong Kong was no longer regarded as highly autonomous and no longer guaranteed special treatment as it had been before the handover, and Hong Kong stocks were also sharply reduced. When the bank accounts of Hui Zhifeng, a former democratic legislator, and his family were frozen after he declared exile on March 3, search interest by Citibank for “offshore accounts” surged even faster than in May.
The exodus of Hong Kong immigrants has reached a stage of implementation
In recent months, the expectation of Hong Kong migrants fleeing the country has been put into practice instead of going through the planning stage, in which the application for a “certificate of no Criminal record” (commonly known as a “good citizen certificate”) is the final stage of immigration. Comparing the number of “good citizen’s cards” issued by the police between 2017 and 2020, the BROADCASTER found that the average number of “good citizen’s cards” issued by the police has exceeded 3,000 each month since the anti-delivery movement, a new high in recent years. In 2020, the number of “good citizen cards” issued dropped due to the epidemic situation. However, after the enactment of the “National Security Law of the Hong Kong Area”, the number of “good citizen cards” issued rose again, from 1,711 in May to 2,782 in June. After that, an average of 2,600 “good citizen cards” were issued every month.
Economist: Neither the poorest nor the richest can go
Luo Jiacong, an economist, estimates that most of the people now planning to emigrate are middle – and lower-middle classes, with “the poorest and the richest unable to move” relative to the scope for ownership, because the former have too few assets to find a way out. He also pointed out that in the past, Hong Kong people opened offshore accounts mainly for investment purposes. However, due to the political instability in Hong Kong, especially the recent freezing of The accounts of Mr Hui and his family, he believed that future immigration of Hong Kong people would change in accordance with the current situation in Hong Kong.
‘The richest people, like Li Ka-shing, have less percentage left,’ Mr. Law said. But you see the second and third generation [of the major developers], mostly the CPPCC, they can’t walk, they’re holding a lot of land. So it must be someone below that level who can say go.
Scholar: Hong Kong people have immediate danger of property and personal safety
Chung Jian-hua, deputy chief executive officer of the Hong Kong Institute of Public Opinion, said that the mentality of Hong Kong people in this wave of immigration is obviously different from that of 1997. The implementation of the National Security Law has become the main factor driving Hong Kong people to immigrate, making them feel in imminent danger.
Chung said that the two waves of immigration in the 1980s and 1990s were mainly caused by Hong Kong people’s lack of confidence in the return of The Motherland. But at that time, Hong Kong was in the stage of democratization, political situation was stable and the government was becoming more and more accountable. At that time, most Hong Kong people held a wait-and-see attitude, “maybe they would arrange their families to go there first so that they could earn more money in Hong Kong for one or two years”. Many people were not in a hurry to leave immediately. That wave of emigration makes it clear that Hong Kong people are now eager to resettle.
‘Those who are leaving now do so for the sake of their children’s further education and don’t want their children to be’ brainwashed ‘, ‘Mr. Chung said.’ Many are also worried about the Political situation in Hong Kong. ‘ That kind of panic is stronger than ever. Now Hong Kong people are not facing a deadline, but facing immediate danger; So now the numbers of people applying for immigration, the numbers of people applying for offshore accounts, reflect that the actions and determination of people in Hong Kong are really affected by social events that happen in real time.
In his opinion, it is not entirely wrong to regard this wave of immigration as a “flood of refugees”, as there are indeed some Hong Kong people who are going to become foreign refugees because of the Hong Kong political situation, such as Hui Zhi-feng and Leung Ching-hang.
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