- To counter China for passing a security law that invades the civil rights of the people of Hong Kong, the United States should welcome Hong Kongers to immigrate here.
- There are only about 7 million people in Hong Kong (which is smaller than New York City), and the brain drain would create a headache for Beijing.
- Furthermore, the US would win a group of educated workers to help us out of the economic malaise that will surely result from the coronavirus pandemic.
- This is a great way to defend human rights, but Donald Trump doesn’t care about those. He is still obsessed with making a trade deal with China, and he is racist. So it’s hard to see this happen.
- This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
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There is a clear way to counterattack China by passing a national security law that violated the civil rights of the people of Hong Kong: giving Hong Kongers a path to citizenship in the United States.
The brain drain that would ensue could leave Hong Kong, a city of well-educated and democratically-oriented people, unrecognizable to Beijing. And once the coronavirus pandemic ends, the US will need all the work it can get to strengthen its economy again.
Not to mention, offering refuge to Hong Kong people from an authoritarian regime that invades their human rights is in line with American values at their best. It is the right thing to do.
In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is calling for a similar deal for the people of Hong Kong. But his plan is based on the fact that China violated its Hong Kong transfer agreement with the United Kingdom. In 1997, when Hong Kong was returned to China as a territory, the Chinese Communist Party promised political autonomy to Hong Kong for 50 years.
China’s security law in Hong Kong violates that promise. It makes civil disobedience a crime for which Hong Kongers could be guilty even outside the country. People have already been arrested for things like carrying Hong Kong independence flags in their purses, and there is fear that the Chinese government may start to retroactively charge people for past political activities. People have every right to be afraid.
Some Hong Kong people, born before delivery, have a British national passport abroad and the Johnson government has said that a vehicle will be used to take them and their families to the UK. But there are a whole generation of Hong Kong people who don’t have that status for a variety of reasons, and they should also have options.
Beyond the United Kingdom, countries like Australia and Taiwan have said they plan to open their doors to Hong Kong people seeking to leave the island. It is obvious that the United States should do the same, but sadly, that is not likely.
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It’s hard to imagine Hong Kong being the same destination for financial tours and business conferences that it once was under this new law. On the one hand, the law makes conspiring with foreigners a crime; what that means in practice is something I personally wouldn’t dare try.
However, it is also hard to imagine President Donald Trump doing something as devastating to Beijing as causing a massive brain drain in Hong Kong. In general, his actions against human rights violations in China have been decisive at best.
As I wrote last month, it’s time to stop pretending to be tough on China. All he still wants is a trade deal to greet his base as a victory. Other than that, as the book by former national security adviser John Bolton illustrates, Trump sees common cause with Chinese President Xi Jinping. They share a simple and inherent ideology: that their will prevail over people. Trump sees it as strength. Xi, having lived through the days of Chairman Mao, sees it as survival.
That’s one reason why Trump is unlikely to join this Hong Kong immigration idea. The other is that he hates immigration in general.
In 2017, the Trump administration tried to sell the idea that it only wanted qualified immigrants to come to the U.S., it has now abandoned that claim. Instead, as Catherine Rampell reported in the Washington Post, the administration has literally decreased the printing of immigration documents to reduce immigration, qualified or unskilled, and make legal immigrants undocumented.
The pandemic has accelerated these anti-immigration plans. In late June, Trump signed an executive order to freeze the issuance of a variety of work visas, including H1-Bs. And the administration even tried to expel international college students if their college went online alone, a truly absurd move that was quickly reversed.
Trump’s policies have never been about legal or illegal immigration, they have never been about having or not having skills. It has always been about intolerance against immigrants. That calculation will not change no matter how dire the situation is for the people of Hong Kong, and it means that here in the US we will miss a golden opportunity to be the land of opportunity, and we will push democracy and our economy forward. once. .
This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author (s).
