Talent visa schemes create ‘new Hong Kongers,’ but will they stay?

Wei Sze, Edward Li and Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese, and Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin

Hong Kong’s lawmakers have been brainstorming new ways to attract and keep fresh talent in the city, including possible speed dating events, amid a mass wave of emigration by middle-class professionals and young families fleeing an ongoing political clampdown.

Since the passing of its first national security law in 2020, Hong Kong’s government has been fighting to replace those who leave with talent schemes encouraging people to move to the city to live and work, with some success to date.

While at least 144,000 had left under the United Kingdom’s British National Overseas visa scheme by the end of March 2024, the city’s population rebounded by 170,000 in 2023, suggesting the highest immigration numbers in 20 years.

But recent surveys have found that not everyone is planning to stay. Around one in five have found it hard to land a job on arrival, according to government statistics cited in the city’s Legislative Council on Thursday.

“Most of them have said they don’t know anyone in Hong Kong,” Election Committee representative Rock Chen, who represents the 1,500-member Election Committee, which votes for the chief executive and 40 out of the Council’s 90 lawmakers, told the debate.

“The lack of a boyfriend or girlfriend … will make them less willing to stay and work in Hong Kong,” Chen said. “I suggest that non-government groups, hometown associations, care teams and district councilors build them a comprehensive service network that could organize things like speed dating.”

‘Care teams’

Since 2022, Hong Kong has been sending “care teams” into residential neighborhoods, sparking concerns that they could mimic the local officials and volunteers who carry out government surveillance and implement policy in mainland China.

Government survey results also found that many talent scheme recruits find the cost of living in Hong Kong to be too high, said Chen, suggesting the government subsidize their living costs.

Election Committee representative Lam Chun-sing warned that those who couldn’t land a highly paid job might wind up taking less well-paid jobs away from local people.

“If there are 100,000 talented people who wind up not being able to find a job, does that mean we will need to find more than 100,000 ordinary jobs with a monthly salary of only HK$20,000 to HK$30,000 [US$2,600-3,900]?” Lam said. “Will this affect the employment opportunities for [non-talent-scheme] employees?”

No subsidies

Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun said subsidies are out of the question.

“New York and London don’t offer subsidies or discounts, because they have opportunities to offer, and the same applies to Hong Kong,” Sun told lawmakers. “Our positioning should be the same as [those of] London and New York.”

However, the government is offering non-cash benefits to civil servants, who have also been leaving in droves in recent years, including additional child-care days.

Commentators say the vast majority of people taking up Hong Kong’s talent visas are from mainland China, and that the government is hoping to replace those who flee the city with people from China, who are seen as less likely to make trouble for the authorities.

“They don’t respect Hong Kong culture, but bring in their own culture,” current affairs commentator Sang Pu told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview. “The result will be a gradual transformation of Hong Kong’s culture, its population structure and its customs.”

Based on projections released in August 2023 by the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, about one in four of Hong Kong’s 7 million residents will be from mainland China by 2046, compared with an estimated one in seven in 2022.

Visa programs

Chung Kim-wah, a former assistant professor of the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Polytechnic University, said the visa programs are likely in line with the desire of the ruling Chinese Communist Party to replace those who leave with people raised under its rule.

“The government has been using talent schemes to offset the loss of more than 100,000 working people,” Chung said. “They granted huge numbers of visas, which has had some effect, and was also in line with Beijing’s wishes.”

“Beijing wants to suppress those who support democracy by hanging onto the city but not its people,” he said. “So it’s likely that local Hong Kongers will be replaced by people who grew up in mainland China.”

He said the changes would also make Hong Kong less international over time.

In an earlier interview with RFA, Sang described 170,000 immigrants in the space of one year as “an astonishing number.”

“The Chinese Communist Party is carrying out population-washing, moving people into Hong Kong for political reasons,” he said. “It’s a colonial population replacement policy aimed at washing away anyone who resists its rule or opposes its policies.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.