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Ricochet Solves Hong Kong
This is what Trump should do: Offer US citizenship to all Hong Kong and Chinese nationals who can ace English fluency and the US AP History test, and, as a condition of immigration, agree to no access to our welfare systems.
This would be a huge boost to our economy and nation, and a massive brain drain for China. Win-Win. (Bonus: the threat alone might check Chinese ambitions.)
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Why would they want to leave their homeland, their property, their heritage because there’s a Goliath at the back door? Do you think China would stop there?
They have already been coming. They have increased the price of housing in Vancouver, BC by double digits, and priced many citizens out of the market entirely. This would work only if they did not go to the big cities, which are already straining at the seams. Especially Seattle.
Only if China has to take our Socialist loving lefties on a one for one exchange.
It is the least we can do to help facilitate those souls who believe this place is a running dog capitalist hell hole to reunite them with their utopian visions of how people should be governed.
Do you believe that people paying hard dollars for assets is a BAD thing? Vancouver is a boom town.
Much of Hong Kong’s vaunted heritage is as a free market bastion.
I think we should offer. And mean it.
Because we cannot come up with something better, sometimes I think the one-worldism will eventually prevail because the entire world wants to enjoy the freedom to move about that we enjoy within the United States. The only way to deal with powerful tyrants other than killing them is to get away from them. Tyrants stay in power because their victims are captives for one reason or another.
Enabling wealthy people to escape helps at least some people to get away, and that’s good, but it’s hardly a fair or humanitarian solution.
The Communists have always tried to force wealthy people and young people to stay in their countries. Nothing has changed in that regard. Interesting story I came across years ago in which I learned that the USSR Communists didn’t mind old people leaving Russia. It was just the young people the communists imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain. Wow, does that little fact say a lot about what communism is and isn’t.
iWe,
Now add to your solution an end to Ivy League discrimination against Asians (not that the Asians need it but I just want to see the Ivy League crawl) and you’ve got a plan. Of course, the real solution would have been that the British never signed an agreement with China that didn’t give Hong Kong the option of voting for independent sovereignty.
As China has abrogated part of the treaty (reference the extradition to China) and is threatening to abrogate another part of the treaty (reference the invasion of Hong Kong by Chinese troops) Hong Kong could declare the agreement null & void and simply declare its independence.
Regards,
Jim
I would, sadly, agree that we should offer asylum to the freedom-loving people in Hong Kong, but that would presume that they aren’t going to win…
I do think Trump should add something to his Build-the-Wall anti-illegal-immigrant speech, namely that economic migrants use up space (physical, fiscal, psychic) that we need to hold open so we can offer refuge, support and new life to people who are persecuted in their own countries specifically because they share our values.
It is a characteristic one could easily have applied to the Jews of Europe in the ’30s and increasingly to these today; it already applies to Tommy Robinson and there may be many more to come as Europe yields to the latest oppressive orthodoxy. We may get quite a few free-speech Englishmen and women, Scandinavian women unwilling to swathe themselves in cloth as an alternative to rape and Muslim apostates (or “apostates”) from all over.
It won’t matter where they come from, and it certainly won’t matter what color they are.
The Babylon Bee has already reported that
America Offers To Trade All Of the It’s Communists for Democratic Protestors in Hong Kong
Why stop at Hong Kong?
Damn I was beaten to the punch by the Babylon Bee.
We should not. But it is a good place to start!
Besides, it really brings the issue to a point: does China really want to chase everyone who adds value to their country out? If so, then we should oblige them.
Skilled, capable people are the best asset a country can have – better than natural resources or even cold, hard cash. China’s loss would be our gain. All we have to do is make the offer.
Worst case: China realizes they’ll spark an exodus, and they back down in Hong Kong. Win-Win anyway!
“The Catholic monarch Ferdinand was wrongly considered wise, as he impoverished Spain by the expulsion of the Jews, and enriched Turkey.” Bayazid II
I say no.
It’s sad, folks, but we’ve seen how such refugee entrances have been abused in the past. This stuck us with Ilhan Omar, for crying out loud. Just because someone is oppressed in their home country does not mean that they share our values.
I don’t doubt that some do, but I very much doubt that we can create an effective screening mechanism.
If I recall correctly, I’ve heard Douglas Murray report that the 2nd generation Arab immigrant who was a suicide bomber at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester was the son of refugees from Libya. The attack killed 22 and injured hundreds. His parents were apparently enemies of Qadaffi — because they were in Al Qaeda. At least, this is what I think that Murray reported.
Now I think that I might approve of the Babylon Bee proposal, based on a cost-benefit analysis.
No one wants to live under tyranny, but that doesn’t mean that everyone wants to be free – and more importantly wants to let other people be free.
Because if we bring over the entire population of China, our continent will tip over.
I believe this, but I suspect communists don’t.
Who says we’d stop?
Who’s he?
Forget the Ivy League. Have AZ and Texas declare complete non-discrimination and build the republican future.
Wall Street financial firms are already decamping for Florida. Hong Kong financial firms could be encouraged to do the same. Freedom and no state income tax, with the bonus of a similar climate.
A colleague at another university had escaped East Germany by going to Czechoslovakia and then swimming a river. (Not sure which river that would have been.) His parents were not allowed to leave to join him, but as soon as they reached retirement age they would be allowed to come. I’m not sure if they did; the big wall came down before that point was reached.
I love the idea and if you’re worried about where to put them we could give them Catalina Island. It would shorten their trip by a few miles and in 20 years it’d have the GDP of Germany.
I don’t think they’ll want to be that close again to a communist state.
Wealthy and young, yes, but don’t they try to keep those who are productive?
Fair point. I hadn’t considered that.
Double bonus for Florida. It is close to another communist state with thousands of people who yearn to breathe free, and might be welcomed to the last outpost of Liberty on Earth.