Mainland graduates find life is tough in HK

The SCMP begins a series on Hong Kong’s talent-attracting visa initiatives, which in effect target mostly Mainlanders…

Kira Xiong, a 23-year-old finance graduate with degrees from universities in Melbourne and Sydney, arrived in Hong Kong in July full of hope.

Armed with a two-year visa under the Top Talent Pass Scheme introduced by the city in 2022, she expected to land a job in finance. But the reality has been sobering.

After spending nearly three months sending out more than 100 resumes, lowering her salary expectations and considering work not related to her majors, she settled for an administrative job in a local company.

…Cambridge economics graduate Peter Zhang, 24, secured a junior financial analyst position in March, after a six-month job hunt, sending out more than a dozen resumes.

At one job interview, he found himself competing with more than 100 candidates for three available junior positions, and nearly half of them were also top talent visa holders.

…Many asked whether they should just give up and become insurance agents, described as an easy way to ensure their visas would be extended.

As of last month, 100,972 people had applied for two-year Top Talent Pass visas; 81,463 had been approved, and 66,109 had arrived in Hong Kong. Even all-patriot lawmakers are grumbling that the recipients are not always what Hong Kong needs.

I’ve heard plenty of friends-of-friends anecdotes of Mainlanders planning to use the permits as a stepping-stone to the West or in the hope that they will be able to bring parents here to enjoy free healthcare. It looks like the authorities saw it as a numbers-exercise – a quick way to replace the educated younger people who have emigrated in recent years. Note also that youth unemployment has hit over 20% in the Mainland according to a new statistical methodology introduced after the figure hit 40% in some regions. (It says here: ‘average starting salaries for fresh graduates this year are 5,843 yuan (HK$6,380) in Guangdong, HK$19,806 in Hong Kong, and 14,996 patacas (HK$14,560) in Macau’.)

Former CE CY Leung, a real-estate agent by trade, warns in the Standard/Sing Tao against oversupply of housing, suggesting that demand ‘will not grow forever – especially when you factor in the northern New Territories plans. If he is right, it suggests Hong Kong’s historic expansion in terms of both population and economy is at an end, and that the Lantau reclamation is unnecessary. The reporters didn’t ask.

Some weekend reading…

A longish paper, but worth a read: Carl Minzner on China’s Age of Counter Reform…

The ideological openness of the reform era is disappearing … the ideological closure reflects a broader, decades-long drift back to the securitization of China’s state and society. Stability-obsessed CCP officials, ever on guard against potential risks, see them everywhere. Back in the early 2000s, it was public-interest lawyers who seemed to be vectors for anti-CCP ideas. By the 2010s, social media, civil society, and academia had joined lawyers on the list. Everywhere, Party controls have been reasserted, arrests and jail terms doled out, and the desired “chilling effect” reestablished.

The trend toward closure is spreading. Security officials regularly fan fears of foreign espionage, particularly around April 15, designated since 2016 as National Security Education Day. A 2023 anti-espionage crackdown on consulting firms shocked foreign corporations trying to conduct statistical research and due diligence. China’s LGBTQ+ groups, meanwhile, are worried by fresh official messages that not only their organizational activities but their members’ own sexual and gender identities themselves may be politically problematic. New laws criminalize defamation of regime-designated martyrs and heroes. Access to commercial and academic databases has been curbed. Even large state-sponsored efforts such as the Qing History Project (writing the official narrative of China’s last imperial dynasty) or China Judgments Online (making tens of millions of court documents publicly accessible) have come under suspicion and been politically rectified.

Economically, China continues to slow. Covid lockdowns, a rapidly aging population, and the implosion of a massive property bubble have taken a toll on the once buzzing economy. Annual growth, which registered 6.7 percent as recently as 2016, has steadily fallen. For 2024, the official rate is expected to come in at no higher than 5 percent (the IMF projection) and could be as low as 3 percent (per the New York–based Rhodium Group).

In a similar vein, a Diplomat interview with former Oz PM Kevin Rudd…

Xi has significantly moved the ideological needle – making China more Leninist, more Marxist, and more nationalist. In doing so, many party members who grew up and flourished professionally under previous Dengist ideological assumptions have been alienated. 

It is an open question whether Xi’s framework is therefore durable for the long term – i.e. beyond his term in office, however long that may be. I estimate it would take another 20 years of Xi-ism for it to become fully entrenched in the ranks of CCP, given the youthful age of those who have known no previous system. That would require Xi in turn to be in office until he was approaching 90. 

The WSJ on the ‘rush to get money out of China’ – more on how rather than why…

…the stampede for the exit in the past few years appears to dwarf the outflows that occurred in 2015 and 2016, when an earlier property downturn propelled what at the time was the biggest episode of capital flight from China, in dollar terms, according to economists and a Wall Street Journal data analysis.  

The Journal’s tally suggests as much as $254 billion might have left China illicitly in the four quarters through the end of June. That is a larger sum than fled the country almost a decade ago, when outflows raised fears of a possible financial crisis. However, estimates of such outflows are inherently imprecise and overall capital flight appears to be smaller today as a share of China’s overall economy, which is now much larger. 

In China Books Review Jude Blanchette discusses a new book by Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung on the political thought of Xi Jinping…

According to Tsang and Cheung, “Xi Jinping Thought” is a body of evolving ideological and governance concepts that, unlike Mao Zedong Thought, is not wedded to Marxist principles of permanent revolution, but instead focuses on reinvigorating the Leninist tendrils that keep the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in power domestically, and channeling China’s formidable resources to establish China as a comprehensive global superpower.

The Guardian looks at Beijing censors’ attempts to eradicate the use of puns and other tricks to voice dissent on-line…

The “clear and bright” campaign is targeting “irregular and uncivilised” language online, particularly jokes, memes, and wordplay, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the ministry of education announced this month.

“For some time, various internet jargons and memes have appeared frequently, leaving people more and more confused,” said an editorial by the Communist party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily.

“They also form a hidden erosion on the daily communication and ideological values ​​of minors, which can easily lead to adverse consequences.”

…Authorities are in a near-constant race to catch new ways of describing Xi without mentioning him, which in the past have included a series of three arrows to represent the tones in his full name, or references to Winnie-the-Pooh because of suggestions Xi resembles the character.

VOA on Taiwan’s plans to prepare for a possible Chinese blockade…

According to the [Agriculture] ministry, the current rice stockpile can sustain Taiwan for seven months, and its fish feed inventory is enough to support fishing in ponds for over three months if sea fishing is not possible. The government said it is also drafting plans to prepare for rice rationing during wartime.

In the event of a Chinese military blockade, Taiwanese authorities said they would dedicate more farmland to grow rice and use additional ponds to grow aquaculture. The crops that Taiwan would prioritize growing in the event of war include sweet potatoes, soybeans and fresh vegetables.

…Maintaining Taiwan’s oil supply is another concern. Taiwan imports close to 70% of its oil from the Middle East, which some legislators worry could be affected if China pressures regional countries to halt exports to the island during a blockade. Hu said the island has diversified its oil procurement from other countries, such as the United States and Indonesia.