May 30, 2020
TRIGGER THE BIDDING WAR:
Democracies Must Not Fail Hong Kong Migrants: These communities deliver as many benefits to their host countries as they gain from being there. (David Fickling, May 30, 2020, Bloomberg)
About 1.4 million Hong Kongers were born since the 1997 handover. The democracy activists most at risk of reprisals in any crackdown are over-represented among that generation, who'd by virtue of their age be ineligible for BN(O) status. That's where Taiwan, the U.S., Canada and Australia -- the other democracies that have spoken up in support of the rights of Hong Kongers this week -- need to back up their words with actions.President Donald Trump was vague on details of action his administration may take over Hong Kong in a speech Friday -- but as my colleague Eli Lake has argued, America should open its doors to Hong Kongers as a matter of principle. There's little to welcome about the Cold War brewing between Washington and Beijing, but one small virtue of the previous conflict with the Soviet Union was the way America welcomed refugees from Communist countries in a way that would be unthinkable in our current nativist moment. Taiwan, which has justified fears of becoming the next target of Beijing's irredentist nationalism, is in the same geopolitical boat.Canada and Australia have even more to gain. Each has a proportionately larger Hong Kong diaspora than any other English-speaking country, with about one in every 200 residents born in the city, and larger numbers of second- and third-generation migrants. Canada's trade minister, Mary Ng, is Hong-Kong born, as is Gladys Liu, who holds one of the most marginal seats on behalf of Australia's ruling coalition.
We ought to do everything we can to make as many of them as possible choose America.
Posted by Orrin Judd at May 30, 2020 8:51 AM