UK wins rare ‘shameless logic of bandits’ tag

So much Mainlandization and general mayhem in the last few days: the Bar Association struggle session, a quick ‘consultation’ on real-name registration for SIM cards, hints at more ambush-lockdown compulsory-testing operations, and more. We start the week with Beijing’s Big BNO Freak-Out

On Sunday, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office … strongly condemned the British for violating its promise not to give BN(O) passport holders right of residence…

The office claimed the UK was beautifying its colonial history and called this “a shameless logic of bandits’, seriously hurting the feelings of the Chinese”.

Beijing’s local minions repeat warnings of retaliation against BNO passports, now the UK is offering those eligible for them plus dependants – maybe two-thirds of the population – a route to residency. There’s a lot of uncertainty about Beijing or local authorities ‘not recognizing’ BNOs. Can the government force airlines not to recognize the documents as valid for outbound travel? Will it sanction those who hold BNOs if they are, for example, civil servants? Can it even identify who holds one? If BNO holders are hassled (it seems to have started already), what message does it send the hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers holding Canadian, Australian and other documents?

There’s a lot going on here. 

The CCP has multiple reasons, yet again, to be angry. It sees ethnic Chinese as essentially the property of the emperor, and Beijing’s officials are seething that another country dares presume to have some sort of rights over part of the bloodline. It finds it insulting that foreigners claim to wish to ‘protect’ Chinese from their own rulers. On a more practical level, Beijing is paranoid about its subjects potentially having foreign allegiances (unless they are CCP elites’ family members). And of course it will be humiliating if sizable numbers take up the UK’s offer. Beijing’s immediate impulse here is simply to hurt someone, out of frustration.

To many Hong Kong people, citizenship has always been a rather fluid concept, like national identity. A foreign passport has long been seen as a desirable insurance policy, and even as a status symbol. Any effective action Beijing takes to penalize BNO (or other foreign passport) holders will have to be heavy-handed and intrusive. What better way than hinting at exit controls to confirm families’ suspicions that they need to get out of this city? Airy talk of ‘just replacing them with Mainlanders’ will further convince people to pack their bags. Most Hongkongers are descended from people who fled CCP rule in the 1950s-70s.

Hong Kong’s own local officials must recite Beijing’s line, but in reality they are torn by all this (and not just because Carrie Lam once promoted BNOs). Many middle-ranking civil servants/cops and their families have foreign passports. As we saw in the 1990s, the urge to emigrate is infectious. Any serious retaliation by Beijing against BNO-holding families could impact people’s lives a bit like US sanctions have affected the top officials – encouraging an exodus among bureaucrats along with the rest of the middle class.

In short, Beijing might really want to assimilate Hongkongers, but its fury over BNOs is more likely to create a bigger diaspora. Meanwhile, on top of ‘ambush’ lockdowns and SIM card worries, the FT reports that companies want Hong Kong written out of arbitration clauses in contracts.

Remember these arguments from 30 years ago?

The UK has stumbled on to a win-win. It can appear virtuous, while boosting its aging population with immigrants who are no less hard-working than Poles and Somalis, but who – after they have sold their apartment in Shatin – will be GBP millionaires.

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12 Responses to UK wins rare ‘shameless logic of bandits’ tag

  1. donkey says:

    I will repeat this maxim: Leninism, socialism, Marxist authoritarianism, communism and fascism ALWAYS lead to their own downfall. It is not the true state of humankind to be bossed around, and the humanity will always find a way to kick in the teeth of the despots. Remember Romania?

  2. Reactor #4 says:

    One thing I don’t understand about ‘you lot’ on this topic (BNO passports and UK settling options) is that you’re not going after Carrie Lam’s family, and thus the woman herself. I believe the husband has strong UK connections, as do their kids (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lam_Siu-por). With such low-hanging fruit, I might have thought you’d be giving them a serious ‘pitchforking’.

  3. YTSL says:

    “Airy talk of ‘just replacing them with Mainlanders’ will further convince people to pack their bags.”

    Two points re this:-
    1) Many people already feel that it’s happening rather than mere airy talk. Just this past weekend, a financier friend was talking about how the Hong Kong branches of Chinese banks, etc. are all staffed by Mainlanders “because the Chinese don’t trust Hong Kongers” and, also, because the Hong Kongers don’t speak Putonghua as fluently, aren’t as knowledgeable about the Mainland, etc.; and
    2) It’s always interesting to see the same people who want to maintain that “we are all Chinese” also (inadvertently) pointing out key (cultural, etc.) differences between Hong Kongers and Mainlanders that are so significant that, yes, it would seem like these are two very different kinds of people (akin to people who are from/grew up in different countries)…

  4. Andrew Mountford says:

    >Reactor #4

    Maybe ‘we’ are not bitter and vindictive little shits?

  5. where's my jet plane says:

    Chiu said. He believed Hongkongers who obtain the right to reside in Britain will lose their rights to be Chinese citizens and Hong Kong permanent residents.

    So, how come there are so many males living in the UK, of so-called indigenous descent and with British passports, with ding rights?

  6. Chinese Netizen says:

    I was hoping a nice long thread would have come out of this with an added bonus of no one taking the bait of a certain fuckwit with his not particularly original or even interesting “observations” in order to stir the pot. Andrew Mountford fumbled and sadly fed the bottom dweller. I, for one, AM a vindictive shit.

  7. where's my jet plane says:

    Why do photographs like this make me think of a firing squad?
    https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1573320-20210131.htm?spTabChangeable=0

    Where’s the social distancing, too?

  8. Low Profile says:

    Since China has declared the Joint Declaration to be ancient history of no further relevance, by the same token, surely any promises Britain may have made as part of the handover deal are no longer binding?

  9. HKJC Irregular says:

    The greatest affront offered by this column today was the pic of an estate agent’s window defaced with a map of Britain and the Teddy Bear’s Head – that would be Ireland’s (yes it is) province of Ulster. Nihil nos séparet..

    Sorry to indulge Rectum-foreskin, but Carrie and her brood have been pilloried in these columns far more often than you have displayed any semblance of wit.

  10. Mary Melville says:

    Regina’s concerns that those opting for UK will be treated like refugees is touching. Or a recognition of the fact that the replacement citizens from the north will have no interest in voting for her party.

  11. Chinese Netizen says:

    @Low Profile: I think the world should most definitely start adopting “China Rules” and sign on to as many agreements, advisory bodies and MOUs as possible and then totally trample on and take a dump on them all.

  12. Low Profile says:

    Regina Ip claims that Britain is treating Hongkongers like refugees – in 0ther words, giving them a safe haven when they face repression and political persecution in their place of origin. I’m curious why she apparently thinks this is a bad thing.

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