Political foolery on the other side of the globe…

Spike has been running some great commentary on the effort by Hong Kong domestic helpers to win the right of abode in the Fragrant Harbor. Its a fascinating story-full of the kind of cheap slander all us gweilos used to be accused of ( and still are in certain corners):

For those who don’t know about this, an important component of Hong Kong’s economy is the domestic helper. Mostly female, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, they come here on special visas and are expected to work a 6 day week and usually a 16 hour work day (or more) and in return are paid roughly HK$3580 (US$500)(not sure what the current legal minimum is) plus room and board and a plane ticket for a home visit every two years. No matter how long they’ve been here, they can’t qualify for HK permanent resident status and if they lose their job, they have just two weeks to find another one or have to leave.

Many of these people are now banding together to protest what they see as unfair treatment by the government and demanding the ability to apply for permanent resident status after seven years. The upcoming lawsuit has thrown the HK government and many HK residents into a frenzy. The SCMP reports this morning that there is a “storm of opposition online” including, wait for it, a Facebook group. The name of the group on Facebook is ”Against foreign helpers obtaining right of abode. Protect the welfare of Hong Kong people from being seized” and that page has all of 1,200 likes. Given the number of people in Hong Kong who are on Facebook, I’m not sure that 1,200 “likes” should be enough to even qualify for news coverage.

Now, as Joe Biden would say-this is a big f*cking deal to Hong Kong’s ethnic Chinese population, who for the most part are the ones doing the demeaning of said Filipinos and enjoying a more comfortable life at their expense. In a fit that would do America’s Tea Party brigade proud-the Asia Sentinel noted this little tidbit:

The Philippines can always be relied upon to be a butt of derision in Hong Kong, a feature which was dramatically boosted lasted year by the slaying of Hong Kong tourists on a tourist bus thanks in part to the incompetence of the Manila police in dealing with a the bus hijacker. But the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), an arm of the Communist Party and the territory’s largest party, has taken anti-Filipino sentiment to new levels.

In an attempt to present itself as the party of the common man and to divert attention from other grassroots issues, the DAB has launched a scare campaign suggesting that Hong Kong is in danger of being flooded with Philippine migrants, creating a huge rise in local unemployment and costing billions in welfare payments.

The issue has come up because seven Filipinos working in Hong Kong for more than seven years have taken the government to court asking for a judicial review of the refusal of its Commissioner for Registration and the Registration of Persons Tribunal to grant them permanent residence. Normally permanent residence status is granted to anyone who has been living in Hong Kong continuously for more than seven years but the government argues that this does not apply to foreign domestic helpers as they are not “ordinarily resident”.

  

The problem is-as Spike points out-there is no clear cut exclusion of these folks in Hong Kong’s Basic Law:

Article 24 of the Basic Law states, in part, “The permanent residents of the HKSAR shall be … (4) Persons not of Chinese nationality who have entered Hong Kong with valid travel documents, have ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than seven years and have taken Hong Kong as their place of permanent residence …” It does not say “except for XXX.”

Article 25 states, “All Hong Kong residents shall be equal before the law.”

Article 39 states, “The provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and international labour conventions as applied to Hong Kong shall remain in force and shall be implemented through the laws of the HKSAR.”

Full stop. There may be those in Hong Kong who “do not want them here” and you are of course entitled to your opinion but there is no legal or ethical basis for denying them resident status if they otherwise qualify for it.

That has not stopped the government and other parties from fighting back.

The government is trying to enter as evidence estimates that “great numbers” of Filipino maids would become permanent Hong Kong residents in its fight against foreign domestic workers who are seeking right of abode.

But a High Court judge called an impromptu hearing yesterday to ask the government why it had applied to file new evidence only weeks before a judicial review begins.

Last week the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong released figures that said the city’s unemployment rate would rise to 10 per cent, from the current 3.5 per cent, if the maids prevailed in their effort for permanent residency. The party cited a government estimate that 500,000 people could settle in Hong Kong, costing an extra HK$25 billion a year in social spending, if domestic workers were granted permanent residence.

 

It is interesting to watch this drama play out-at least Hong Kong is going through the motions of letting the system have a chance before screwing these people over. In Singapore they probably would  just arrest them, deport them,  and import more Indonesians to fill the balance. There would certainly be no messing with the legal niceties. Of course,  as one of Hemlock’s commenter’s points out-exclusionary thinking is not just limited to the serving class.

Far less justifiable is the exclusion of qualified professionals, wherever they come from, who meet genuine market needs, including doctors, nurses, lawyers and other protected classes.

I know I would be happy to move to Hong Kong-but there is this little problem of finding a job there.

The good news , if you are Chinese, is that the odds of the maids winning are pretty small. After all,  this is now part of China ( an abomination in and of itself-DAMN YOU Margaret Thatcher!).

One possible explanation for the government-DAB scaremongering is that the case offers an opportunity for another ‘interpretation’ of the Basic Law, by which Beijing hands down an expedient new meaning that disregards the wording of the mini-constitution. But this sounds like a conspiracy theory; while the idea of eroding Western-style rule of law as an end in itself excites some pro-communist elements in Hong Kong, it discomforts the bureaucracy and business community, and arouses hostility among the media and public opinion.

The idea that Beijing is getting agitated about the prospect of an influx of non-ethnic Chinese into one rich, southern, largely autonomous city also sounds a bit far-fetched. Not that the Central People’s Government is in favour of diluting Han populations, but with train disasters and rebellious colonies in Tibet and Xinjiang to deal with, it must come low down their list of priorities.

I would not be so sure about that-this is China after all.

It will be interesting to watch in the weeks and months ahead. Even more interesting if I could get back to Hong Kong for a visit later this year. ( Hope does spring eternal).