I mean it. Mostly I just agree with everything Nigel Farage says. I am sure he’s not always right, but he sees many issues ahead of their time and is so often proved to be right. But I disagree with him over one thing and that is the prospect of mass immigration from Hong Kong.
When the handover to China took place and Paul Theroux predicted public executions in Happy Valley racecourse in Kowloon Tong and that the PLA would take to the streets and control everyone’s lives we feared a mass exodus from Hong Kong. I had never visited then but I knew what kind of place it was, and I knew many people—mainly students of mine—from Hong Kong and I could see that there was nothing not to like about them. These were the hardest working people I had at that ever encountered. Later, I came to realise from extensive work with Chinese colleagues in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore and Mainland China that this was predominantly a Chinese trait. At that time, I thought it would be a great idea to hand over some large and uninhabited parts of the UK, maybe some islands off the west coast of Scotland, give them the wherewithal to establish themselves and just sit back and wait for economic prosperity to arrive. Having since been to Hong Kong over 100 times (excluding transiting at its marvellous airport en route to Australia and New Zealand and other parts of the Far East and South East Asia), I am sticking to my guns. Let them all in.
Notwithstanding the fact that many of these people are already UK citizens, albeit that most are UK citizens of an attenuated nature, they are fleeing a legal system established by us to escape the largest and currently the most ruthless regime in the world. Moreover, while retrospective apology and historical browbeating are going to solve nothing, we must realise that we British—many still current establishment figures—did not cover ourselves in glory either when we were there as rulers, in the process of handover or since. Only in 1947, after a ban of 50 years, did we allow Hong Kong Chinese citizens to live on the Hong Kong island Peak. That is well remembered. We provided Hong Kong with British justice and British barristers continue to practice there. We provided them with a superb educational system which they have maintained while ours has crumbled. A colleague to whom I asked the question ‘did you like the British’ answered ‘no, but things were better’.
But we dropped one enormous political clanger in never granting the citizens of Hong Kong democracy. Had we granted them full democracy as practiced in the UK when handover was imminent, then the Chinese would have found that harder—possibly even impossible—to dismantle. Some limited democracy was introduced in anticipation of our departure and there remains a limited system of voting, but all candidates must be approved by the Chinese government, meaning that some people cannot stand for any kind of election. It is abundantly clear that the Chinese have been screwing down on the post of Chief Executive, an appointment of the Central People’s Government (aka the Chinse Communist Party) ever since they took over. While all Communist Party approved, these have changed from the avuncular Tung Chee-hwa whom I once met when I got upgraded to First Class by Cathay Pacific, through devout Roman Catholic Donald Tang KBE (dropped the ‘Sir’ under pressure from China) whom I used to spot at Mass, then Leung Chun-ying of secret basement swimming pool fame, to the present horror that is Carrie Lam. It was heart-breaking to be in Hong Kong in 2019, my final visit before pandemic lockdown, at the height of the riots and to smell an old familiar smell from my military days, tear gas. The largely peaceful and tolerant Hong Kong Chinese could take no more.
You just have to visit Hong Kong once to be blown away by what has been achieved commercially, architecturally and financially. Visiting expats like me often ask why, when we ran the place, we could not achieve this in the UK. The same, of course, could be said of Singapore (which is, essentially, Hong Kong without the fun). Local expats will say simply that they had the Chinese working for them, initially, and then with them, latterly. I have only worked in Hong Kong since the handover and, while a significant expat presence remains in academia, I have only ever worked in universities under predominantly Chinese senior management. However, great opportunities remain for expats and I can point to several successful colleagues who have taken up permanent senior positions since the handover. People and cultures work well together in Hong Kong, which remains ostensibly Chinese, because people work hard together, and only hard work is tolerated. Indolence is despised and the indolent do not survive long.
So, I say let them in. We have no idea what the numbers are likely to be but, as with most predictions, it will undoubtedly be a lot less than we imagine. Where should they go? Well, I live in Hull on Humberside where we have decaying docklands, an under-used but impressive bridge and the sight of a boat on the Humber causes excitement as it is so rare. Send the Hull City Council over to Hong Kong for a week, get them to take a look at Hong Kong Harbour and just try to imagine the Humber—with ports that are some of the closest in the UK to Europe—a thriving and industrious centre of commerce and industry. A pipedream perhaps. At the moment I’d settle for replacing the Labour City Council who have presided over most of our decay.
Opinions from the Unity News Network (UNN) editorial team & various contributors. | UNN always clearly distinguishes between news and opinion pieces and as an open minded outlet we publish views from a variety of people and organisation that do not necessarily reflect the views of UNN or its writers. Articles published under UNN Opinions are always opinion pieces and if published on behalf of a contributor will contain that authors name at the start of the piece.
