Courtesy of Joel Chan – a chart of rent hikes and cuts in different areas of Hong Kong…
The ‘winner’ districts in the left-hand column are mixed – what you might call lower-middle to upper-middle class. They are mostly downtown or have otherwise desirable locations, and they have relatively affordable newish residential blocks. Kai Tak could have been included. In short, neighbourhoods that attract new Mainland immigrants.
The ‘laggards’ on the right are distinctly high-end. Southside locations Deepwater Bay and Shouson Hill are popular among very well-paid expats, typically boom-era Westerners or Mainlanders, on HK$200,000 a month housing allowances plus chauffeur-driven cars. Sai Kung and Clearwater Bay residents are more likely to be airline pilots, senior engineers, or whatever – ‘no riff-raff’ versions of Discovery Bay. Either way, they are beyond the reach of the sort of Mainland immigrants coming in on talent visas (not to mention inconvenience and tedious lifestyle).
CY Leung again warns about possible problems with an unpredictable influx of Mainlanders. This time, he’s worried about pressure on university places from ‘anchor babies’ born here before 2013 (when he barred Mainland women from giving birth here). But he also likes to point out that the number of talent visas issued does not seem to tally with the number of actual residents. In other words, people are getting permission to settle in Hong Kong but not actually moving here. His concern is that they might suddenly turn up and overload the city’s capacity. Current policymakers are probably more worried that they won’t. Thanks to Covid-NatSec emigration and an absurdly low birth rate, talent visas seem to be the city’s main source of population growth.
And now there’s blowback in Japan over mainland Chinese migrants. It’s giving fuel to a new anti immigrant political party that takes some cues from the racist and authoritarian lead of the American MAGAot movement.
Is that enough “TDS” for you?
Spare a thought for we locals living in the first column districts facing a 20% rent increase on 2 years contracts instead of the previous 10% bump.
There’s plenty of “riff-raff” in Sai Kung – it’s what makes the place so likeable, though there are unseemly signs of gentrification of late, especially with the ornamental dog cult.
Yeah, the Japanese have historically been enormously welcoming to foreigners; it’s the malign influence of MAGA that is turning them against incomers.