Fleeing China, Hong Kong people flock to Britain

LONDON –

He doesn’t have a job, he still grapples with English and the climate is often cold and humid, but Dennis Chan is still grateful to have settled his life in Britain.

The 34-year-old arrived in Scotland’s capital Edinburgh on his own in April after leaving his post as cargo officer for Cathay Pacific airline in Hong Kong.

He had never set foot in Britain before. But he also felt he no longer recognized his own homeland amid China’s relentless crackdown on political dissent and civil liberties. After Beijing imposed a sweeping new national security law on Hong Kong in July last year, it felt the urgency to leave.

“It’s a big change for me. The culture is very different, ”he said of his newly adopted country, adding,“ But the people of Hong Kong can no longer criticize the government or the police. Hong Kong is not the place I know anymore.

With his mother’s blessing, Chan packed his bags and took advantage of a special visa that Britain grants to residents of his former colony. The program, which politicians of all stripes call a historic and moral obligation, offers Hong Kong citizens the right to live and work in the UK for up to five years, as well as a path to citizenship.

Less than two months after the UK national visa for overseas was made available in January, the UK government received 34,000 applications. She estimates that around 300,000 people could accept the offer within five years; others say the figure could approach 500,000.

For many newcomers like Chan, who still lives in a rented room and finds his bearings, the transition has not been easy. Although Britain has a well-established Chinese community, many Hong Kong people who have immigrated in recent months have struggled to land jobs and make connections, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. They miss – or even fear for – loved ones left behind, and they sometimes feel the sting of racism here in the country that ruled Hong Kong for 156 years as part of its empire straddling the globe.

“I don’t really know anyone,” said Reese, 25, who arrived in Britain with two friends and little else. He requested that only his first name be used for fear of reprisals.

After China’s draconian national security law came into effect, he began looking for a way to escape the only life he had ever known for the chance to determine his own future. His family didn’t approve – “we’re not really on the same wavelength on these decisions,” he lamented – but he couldn’t imagine staying put.

“I felt like I couldn’t breathe at all,” Reese said. “We couldn’t speak freely or do whatever we wanted to do. “

He visited Britain last October under a waiver that allowed him to enter before the official visa program began. He eventually got the visa, found administrative work in a North London hospital and is trying to assimilate.

“I was lucky to have a job,” Reese said. “Right now people don’t find it easy to find a job. I hope I can start planning my life here while also trying to find ways to speak for Hong Kong. “

Born in 1995, he escaped the special visa application process, which is only available to Hong Kong residents born before July 1, 1997, when Britain returned control of Hong Kong to the China. The restriction has been condemned by rights groups for leaving young people behind, even though many of them were at the forefront of the massive pro-democracy protests that rocked Hong Kong in 2019.

Since these protests, the city’s pro-Beijing government has virtually silenced political opposition, arrested democracy activists and tightened its grip on society at large, in sectors such as education and the arts. , to make sure he conforms to the vision of the ruling Communist Party.

“We are not emigrating – we are escaping,” said a 44-year-old woman who moved with her husband to London in July 2020 and requested that only her last name, Chan, be used.

She was last in the British capital 10 years ago as a tourist and arrived this time to find a city that was slowly opening up after a coronavirus shutdown but which also seemed dangerous and hostile.

In her new home, she watched reports of stabbing and gun crimes. In a mall, she was almost assaulted by a group of teenagers who wanted her phone. While she was out one day, she was verbally assaulted and told to “go back to where you came from”.

“I was so shocked,” she said. “I never thought it would be easy. But when I got there I found it was a lot worse than I expected.

The history of British attitudes towards the Chinese community is turbulent. David Tang, a lawyer for London’s Chinatown and first vice-president of the London Chinatown Chinese Assn., Recalled that as a young man arriving from Hong Kong in the late 1970s, he regularly faced name-calling.

After joining the London Metropolitan Police, also known as Scotland Yard, he was nicknamed “Charlie Chan” by other officers and encountered incidents where Chinese restaurant owners called the police on customers who refused to pay, only to find that “the police listened to the client side and arrested the Chinese,” Tang said.

In 2001, when foot-and-mouth disease swept across Britain, causing millions of farm animals to be slaughtered, China’s food industry was widely – and wrongly – blamed. The Daily Mirror tabloid fueled racist stereotypes about Chinese eating practices with the headline “Sheep and Sow Source” – a pun on “sweet and sour sauce”.

The scapegoat has led to protests and growing political awareness within the British Chinese community. Six years ago voters in southern England elected the country’s first Chinese-born MP.

According to 2011 census data, more than 400,000 people of Chinese descent live in the UK, and Tang believes the path to integration in Britain will be easier as community relations have improved dramatically.

But he fears for anyone who arrives without financial security. The pandemic and Britain’s exit from the European Union have added to economic tensions here. The divisive Brexit campaign in recent years has also stoked xenophobia which some blame for an increase in racist abuse and attacks.

For newcomers, some solace and help has been found by connecting with support organizations like the Hong Kongers in Britain. In Scotland, Dennis Chan, the former air cargo manager, attended local group meetings to learn about government resources, make friends and attend rallies to raise awareness of the plight of those who remain in Hong Kong.

There, tearful farewells at the international airport became the norm amid the growing crackdown on freedoms Hong Kong was supposed to enjoy for 50 years after it returned to Chinese control under the treaty signed by China and the United Kingdom. Britain.

On a recent evening in August, a young couple and their 6-year-old son said their final farewells to loved ones before boarding a flight to Britain.

Wearing a yellow face mask and a black T-shirt with “Hong Kong” printed on it in Chinese, James, 35, hugged his family, including his elderly grandmother, who asked him to where he was going.

“Grandma, I’m going to study in the UK,” James said, leaning forward and shouting in his grandmother’s ear. They kissed perhaps for the last time.

“With the uncertainties of the national security law, I don’t think we will be back in the near future,” he said afterwards.

Sadness lurks those who leave, even if they appreciate the chance for a future in a democratic Britain – an opportunity won at the cost of never seeing their loved ones again.

“I don’t know if I will really have the option of returning to Hong Kong in the future – or before I die,” said Chan, the woman who moved with her husband to London in July of last year.

“We don’t know what will happen if we go back. It’s really hard, ”she said, fighting back tears.

Boyle is special envoy to London. Special Envoy Hsiuwen Liu in Hong Kong contributed to this report.