The *Best-and-Brightest (TM) in our society are driven, they will tell you, by a desire to act against injustice and in support of the oppressed. That they have to create and amplify divisions to accomplish this mission doesn’t seem to trouble them. While they’re busy telling us that the word “picnic” is racist, however, a very real and major battle between liberty and oppression is being lost.
I speak of the political subsumption of Hong Kong by China.
Columnist Bari Weiss writes of one seminal moment in this war: the shut-down of a pro-liberty Hong Kong newspaper, Apple Daily. Make it the pro-liberty paper in Hong Kong:
Over the past week, the same forces that jailed him came for his newspaper. Hundreds of police officers raided the newsroom. They seized hard drives and laptops. They arrested five of the company’s top executives and editors, who stand accused of collusion with foreign forces and endangering national security. They froze the company’s assets. The swashbuckling, anti-Communist tabloid, the symbol of Hong King’s free press, printed its last edition on Thursday.
They printed a million copies and were sold out by lunch time.
A million copy sell-out in a city of seven million. Tells us something about the politics of Hong Kongers.
Read Weiss’s article, and remember the name Jimmy Lai, a self-made man who founded Apple Daily and chose to put himself at extreme risk rather than flee to safety. Then ponder how our “woke” Left has nothing to say about any of this, and everything to say about purported offenses that they often made up out of thin air.
Libertarians have been putting forth the idea of inviting every citizen of Hong Kong to come to the US with a path to citizenship. Already, the UK and Canada have an analogous way, but the US could get even more aggressive about it, as a great thumb in Xi Jinping’s eye, as the right thing to do, and as a boon to the nation. They’re freedom-loving and entrepreneurial, they’d bring as much wealth as could be exported under the CCP’s nose, and they’d fit right in with America’s foundational principles.
In fact, they’re almost certainly more freedom-loving than many Americans.
Unfortunately, today’s dominant faction on the Right probably wouldn’t have it. They talk a big game about the difference between legal and illegal immigrants, but I’ve witnessed, in push-comes-to-shove moments of honesty, blanket rejections of expanding immigration in general, because “American jobs, “foreigners,” and other nativist sentiments. That’s not all of you, obviously, but I’ll wait for someone to proffer a rational argument against inviting the Hong Kongers that isn’t rooted in dislike of “other.”
The Left won’t have it either. Not only would they not want to offend China (if for no other reason than Trump did want to), they’d see this pro-liberty crowd as more likely to side with the small-government people. Not to mention, they’re not the right color. While the Left is trying hard to stuff people into the “AAPI” basket and claim it as one of their own, a couple million liberty-loving Hong Kongers wouldn’t serve their power-lust.
Any lover of liberty should support this immigration idea.
I close with Charles Koch’s sentiment:
I would let anybody in who will make the country better, and no one who will make it worse.
Hong Kongers would make America better.
Loading ...
While I like the idea of saving these people and snubbing Xi, I do have a rational argument to proffer: WAR. I don’t want to see missiles start to fly just because the communist’s ego can’t take losing face. If they don’t take it out on us they’ll surely pick a more close-to-home, weaker target. I suppose they are already marching in this direction in SE Asia. Maybe it’s inevitable.
They may find a tough nut to crack with Vietnam. Remember what the Vietnamese did when we were there. Of course, that assumes that the Vietnamese got foreign support like they did back then. Of course, the Chicoms won’t be supplying it. Wouldn’t it be ironic if *we* were the ones giving them support?
I would be all for such an immigration plan, with the caveat that the applicants are vetted for “plants”. The ChiComs would be nuts not to try to plant as many as they could. Other than that and the usual health criteria, I’d back that.
I’m surprised you believe a significant number on the right would oppose. I think it would be a small percentage, the hermetically sealed borders crowd.
I don’t think the Right’s opposition would be huge, but I do think it would be above “noise” level. I’ve seen too much nativism and “America is full” rhetoric to think otherwise.
The risk of “plants” and moles is one of several practical difficulties. In this case, I’d bet that HK “leaders” would be as eager to ferret those out as we would be.
Sounds good on paper. But how are you going to vet some 7 million people in any reasonable amount of time? And do you really expect the Chicoms to go along with this?
Not gonna happen.
Negotiating against yourself is the best way to accomplish nothing.
First, clearly, not all 7M would choose to come. Second, get a few, get those most active, and they’ll tell you who the plants are.
All this is operational detail. Doesn’t obviate the idea.
As has been said, Don’t trust China. China is asshole.
I’m old enough to remember that the Chicoms assured The West that they would respect the rights and autonomy of Hong Kong.
They lied.
Do keep in mind that this is exactly what they intend for Taiwan.
Oh, BTW. Taiwan is strategically vital to Japan. All of their oil and most of their vital ores for needed for their industry has to pass close by Taiwan. If Taiwan falls, then Japan will probably transform from the benign country it is now into their historically belligerent one. It will mean war. And the Japanese know how to do it, as we found out in WWII. If you cut off their resources, they are going to be *chapped*!