Countdown to 2047: The Death of Hong Kong?

[Admiral Beez]

I'd be okay with Canada taking everyone from Hong Kong who's of working age, plus their children, if they wanted to come, minus triads and known criminals, but that's a rare thing.

Canada urged to amend refugee, immigration rules to welcome Hong Kongers fleeing Chinese crackdown

China’s new national-security law has stoked fears among democracy activists that Beijing is further eroding the city's autonomy

www.theglobeandmail.com

Britain is ahead of us...

Boris Johnson lays out visa offer to nearly 3m Hong Kong citizens

UK prime minister says all eligible for BNO passport can apply if China cuts freedoms

www.theguardian.com

 

[ShonTron]

I love visiting Hong Kong, but I won’t be returning anytime this decade. The former colony seems to be going through what many (but not all) former non-Dominion British colony experienced. The Brits haul down the flag, the trumpeter plays last post and hand over the colony to the locals.... who soon turn the place and its working laws and order system to ruin. China wanted into the WTO, GATT and the Olympics so they were careful with Hong Kong. But not now, Hong Kong is going to look like when the British handed Aden or Uganda back to the local totalitarian regimes.

It’s too bad Hong Kong couldn’t become a free city state like Singapore, one of Britain’s most successful former non-Dominion colonies. For that to have happened it would need to occur in the late 1950s or early 60s when Britain was leaving Malaya and Singapore. But that wouldn’t work, as China would want the NT’s back in 1997.

I think the thought was with Mao gone and Deng making moves towards liberalization in the pre -Tiananmen 1980s that China would slowly move towards liberal democracy, at least by the mid 2000s.

And maybe under Jiang and Hu it was still a possibility. But Winnie the Pooh is just the most powerful of a current breed of post-democratic tyrants, from Russia to the Philippines, from India, Turkey, to Brazil.

 

[BubbleTea]

Unless the CCP sees the biggest changes in it's history, else, Hong Kong only has one path to go down. Whether that occurs in 2047, or sooner, we will have to wait and see.

 

[TrickyRicky]

I follow this story with interest but a little sadness personally as well. I have a diverse ethnic background but my Chinese heritage comes from Guangzhou via transit through Hong Kong. My wife is also from Taiwan.

The sadness personally is that my girls will grow up in a world that is internationally probably less free for them than it was for me. The screws will soon start tightening more and more on Taiwan so it really becomes questionable how safe it would be for us to visit China: A country which by the way is an amazing place to visit asides from being the resting place of some of my ancestors. Furthermore in the wider world my girls will probably experience a world of more not less racism than I faced as a person of more indeterminate ethnic origin.

 

[AlbertC]

I follow this story with interest but a little sadness personally as well. I have a diverse ethnic background but my Chinese heritage comes from Guangzhou via transit through Hong Kong. My wife is also from Taiwan.

The sadness personally is that my girls will grow up in a world that is internationally probably less free for them than it was for me. The screws will soon start tightening more and more on Taiwan so it really becomes questionable how safe it would be for us to visit China: A country which by the way is an amazing place to visit asides from being the resting place of some of my ancestors. Furthermore in the wider world my girls will probably experience a world of more not less racism than I faced as a person of more indeterminate ethnic origin.

I was in around grade 5 when SARS happened, and that was the first time that I experienced an increase of concentrated racism in my life. The situation eventually neutralized of course, as how current times will as well at some point. However, SARS didn't have close to the same amount of international scale impact. And the world is a much more volatile and hostile place nowadays, magnified by various polarizing heads of states. As an adult, I feel perfectly fine here doing whatever I want, wherever I want, but I've put international travel on hold indefinitely. Luckily, I've been able to get through a large amount of my personal travel bucket list already. Time to focus at home for the next foreseeable period of time.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Well, I guess I'm never going to Hong Kong. Unless.....