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| Hongkongers escaping to cold wet London? |
Un-good news from Hong Kong. “Beijing should ask itself why BN(O) passport holders want to leave Hong Kong”.
Conquering Covid and energising the economy has apparently given Beijing bluster more bounce. Chief bully-boy amongst their “wolf warriors” is the oleaginous Zhao Lijian, he of “coronavirus-was-brought-to-Wuhan-by-American-soldiers” fame. (I shouldn’t really use ad hominem like that about Zhao, but I’m sorry, he is oily).
Now he’s leading Beijing’s crude attempts to stop Hong Kong holders of the British National (Overseas) passports from leaving Hong Kong to settle in Britain. This would make a mockery of our Basic Law, where free travel is guaranteed. It will backfire on Beijing, though they probably don’t care, having made a success of hiding the Wuhan virus, lying about it, then getting away with draconian steps to crush it.
It is only communist dictatorships stop their citizens from leaving. I was a kid in Bonn, Germany, in 1961 when the Berlin Wall went up. I remember my father, in the Australian Embassy at the time, coming home kind of shell-shocked and saying “Can you I imagine what those East Germans are doing now?!”. I wouldn’t want to be here when a fly-wall goes up. Mind you, Zhao’s blustering doesn’t impact other passport holders like us. At least not yet.
I’m not a big fan of Michael Chugani, author of the article, but he’s on the money here. “Beijing should ask why Hongkongers want to leave”, he says. Indeed.
I’m not holding my breath. Though one can hope they won’t go ahead with such a drastic move.
By the way, this may be shaping up to be about the worst thing to happen since the June implementation of the National Security Law, foisted on us thanks to the antics of the pan-Dems and their rioters. The NSL has helped restore calm to the streets, but otherwise not widely impacted our treasured freedoms. A move such as the threatened by Zhao to stop free travel, if it happens, would be a severe blow to Hong Kong.
I’ve added the “Australia” label because Beijing is also angry at Canberra for offering asylum to Hongkongers. So far it’s shown it’s displeasure by cutting back iron ore and wine imports, a,d stopping coal imports altogether. Canada is also in their sights.
Hoping and dreaming and watching…
