Amid Beijing’s political encroachment, some Hong Kongers are thinking it’s time to say goodbye
Hopeless in Hong Kong: China’s Squeeze Triggers Talk of a New Exodus
Amid Beijing’s political encroachment, some Hong Kongers are thinking it’s time to say goodbye
Gavin Li decided to give up legal guardianship of his two daughters to relatives in the U.S. because he wants them to grow up outside Hong Kong. PHOTO: ANTHONY KWAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Natasha Khan and
Paolo Bosonin
Dec. 26, 2018 8:00 a.m. ET
HONG KONG—In the years leading up to the city’s 1997 return to Chinese rule, Hong Kong citizens headed overseas by the hundreds of thousands, spooked by Beijing’s crushing of student protests in Tiananmen Square and fearful their freedoms would be trampled.
They moved to Canada, the U.S., Australia and elsewhere to start new lives, or to obtain second passports as an insurance policy should they wish to flee. Many native Hong Kongers returned, as the transfer of sovereignty came and went with few signs that Beijing was flexing its muscles.
Now there are early signals a new tide of migration could be looming, as concerns rise about civil liberties, living standards and quality of life. Since Beijing in 2014 faced down protesters calling for greater democracy in Hong Kong, the city’s leaders have stifled opposition in the former British colony. For all but the most ardent activists, resistance has come to feel futile.
The actual number leaving is difficult to track because so many residents obtained foreign passports two decades or more ago. But in a survey last year by a local university, a third of respondents—including close to half of college-educated participants and young people aged 18 to 30—said they would emigrate if they got the chance. Of those, 13% had made actual preparations to leave.
Immigration to Canada has doubled over the past decade. Relocation consultants report an uptick in business in the past few years. Dozens of YouTube videos are being circulated by Hong Kong emigrants touting closer, more affordable places to live, such as Malaysia and Taiwan, where migration has also doubled in the past year. Facebook groups on these topics have also proliferated.
“Before 1997 people were worried about the uncertainty before the handover. Now they are leaving because of the certainty,” said Paul Yip, an academic at the University of Hong Kong who specializes in population studies. He said emigrants are feeling frustrated with the city’s changing political climate or hopeless about an economic boom that has passed many by.
China’s growing presence is everywhere. Bookstores are increasingly not selling books that offend China, Chinese companies dominate the city’s stock exchange, and the use of Mandarin is starting to erode the dominance of the local Cantonese language. By one measure, close to a million people from mainland China have moved to the city of 7.4 million since 1997.
In the past two years, authorities ousted some pro-democratic lawmakers from the city’s legislative council on procedural grounds and a political party has been banned for advocating Hong Kong independence, and a Western journalist was effectively expelledafter hosting a talk by that party’s leader. Meanwhile, homes have remained unaffordable for most in the city, which has among the world’s most expensive real-estate prices.
This year, Gavin Li flew to the southern U.S. with his wife and two young daughters. After two weeks of sightseeing and family visits, Mr. and Mrs. Li returned to Hong Kong without their girls, 7 and 9 years old, having signed documents giving consent to their children’s adoption. American relatives had committed to legally adopt them at the end of a required six-month residence period.
“Hong Kong is getting worse by the day,” said Mr. Li, who as a teenager in 1994 left mainland China to escape the country’s authoritarian system. “I can remember when Hong Kong was still a special place, not just one of the many cities controlled by Beijing. That’s changed.”
The 38-year-old interior designer said he wants his daughters to live where it is possible to imagine a bright future. Mr. Li said it took him two years to convince his wife, a jewelry saleswoman. While they had considered moving as a family, the uncertain application process—his wife doesn’t speak much English—and need to care for their parents in Hong Kong prompted them to send the children instead.
“I’m paying the price for it every day,” said Mr. Li, who typically speaks with his children once a week through a smartphone video app. “I miss holding them in my arms.”
Immigration to the U.S. from Hong Kong has fallen in recent years, as U.S. authorities have tightened rules. But the number of people moving to Canada and Taiwan, though small, is rising, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data.
From 2007 to 2017, the number of immigrants to Canada reached 1,360 from 674, while immigration to Taiwan from Hong Kong and neighboring Macau jumped to 1,251 from 484.
Edmond Lam, a 38-year-old finance professional, has a Canadian passport because his parents moved with him to Alberta in 1997, eager to secure him a better education. He moved back to Hong Kong in 2005, as the city’s economy boomed along with mainland China’s, planning to make a good living and eventually retire to Canada. In 2015, 20 years ahead of schedule, Mr. Lam moved back.
Having taken a pay cut to work in retail banking in the city of Edmonton, Mr. Lam said he had been apolitical but became disillusioned that the government ignored the views of people seeking to have a greater say.
“It made me think a lot about who government should be serving; shouldn’t it be the people?” said Mr. Lam.
Matthew Cheung, the city government’s chief secretary, said in a written reply to questions that concerns about freedoms, opportunity and inequality were “unwarranted, unfounded and unsubstantiated.” Its estimates suggest emigration has fallen in the past decade, he said, but the government acknowledges that there are limitations to those figures since the city doesn’t directly track the movements of its people.
The city is investing heavily to improve housing and education, and Hong Kong’s people continue to enjoy freedom of association and speech, though not completely without restrictions, Mr. Cheung said. Laws prohibit groups in Hong Kong that damage “the interests of national security or public safety, public order or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others,” he said.
In the past few years, Hong Kong’s government has indicated it will eventually introduce an anti-subversion law—a step long sought by Beijing—that could further narrow the scope for political discussion of political matters.
The government’s refusal to give ground during the 2014 protests—during which students slept on city streets, sang protest songs and gathered en masse— was one reason 51-year-old ceramic artist Chris Lo applied to move to Taiwan. The ceramic artist has lived in Hong Kong all his life and recalls participating in demonstrations in 1989 when more than a million people in the city marched in solidarity with Tiananmen Square protesters.
“The Chinese Communist Party felt so far away then,” said Mr. Lo, who is preparing to move in 2019. “These few years, chapter after chapter, are leading toward the same ending,” he said. “Beijing is closing in, and hope is fading.”
Write to Natasha Khan at natasha.khan@wsj.com and Paolo Bosonin at Paolo.Bosonin@wsj.com
Appeared in the December 27, 2018, print edition as 'Hong Kong Talks Of New Exodus as China’s Role Swells.'
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