It’s insane that these people are so scared of possibly catching Covid that they are willing to risk arrest and punishment by escaping into Mainland China. This is partly the fault of the Chinese government who has pushed the “Covid = Deadliest Disease Ever” line on their citizens from about Feb 2020 until now.

It's kind of ironic because since some of them have COVID and are bringing it into the mainland, they're effectively making the situation worse for everyone else. It's sort of like people who fly home anyway even if they're COVID positive (i.e. in the COVID forum), selfishness overrides everything else.

Some of the statements in this article are interesting: https://time.com/6147924/china-pfizer-covid-19-pill/, I am still optimistic that China wants to move towards reopening. Now they have a bunch of convenient scapegoats:

1. Cathay Pacific caused the HK 5th wave because their crew escaped quarantine
2. HK officials are too westernized and don't believe in the mainland COVID measures (e.g. full lockdown) so it spreading in HK is their fault
3. COVID gets into China because people are running away from HK, of course these are all HKers and not mainlanders, we did our best but that's all we could do

1 and 2 are already being pushed in the media

Those illegal immigrants were Mainland residents to start off with:

廣東增21宗輸入新冠確診半數來自香港　珠海出發往北京航班全部取消
https://news.now.com/home/internatio...69&refer=Share

http://cablenews.i-cable.com/ci/news...=1645208184196

This is HK news. The outbreak in Hong Kong is barely being reported on in Mainland news. For example Xi’s remarks Wednesday for HK to get its act together were published in pro-BJ HK news but not at all in Mainland media.

Thats what I would expect. Only the Mainlanders are so deathly afraid of catching Covid that they are willing to risk illegally crossing the border to “safety”.

To be fair I read another Bloomberg article where thousands of Mainlanders with HK residency are crossing over land the permitted way and doing quarantine: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...utbreak-widens

It's more likely than not that Hong Kong has a full lockdown in the near future. COVID concerns aside Hong Kong wouldn't be that much fun to live in right now (restaurants closed at 6pm etc), I don't really blame people for leaving

That article is (sort of) paywalled, but I get the gist of it. percysmith drinks are on me next time we meet up at the Mexican place.

Legal, quotaed travel back to the Mainland is no surprise. moondog remember I asked offline - is the HK border the only border crossing where an arrival (into the Mainland) has to arrange a quarantine hotel in advance? This doesn't seem necessary for international arrivals.

Let them have their way. They won't be satisfied until we do. Ignore the fact we do not have 城管, nor a health code system linked to the payment system, or true resident registration. So we'll end up with lockdown for weeks and weeks on end - not even allowed to go out for essentials like Melbourne.

A flood of negative social media of starving families and encounters with the Police less in intensity but more in frequency than 2019.
Oh, then they'll cut off our data pipelines to the rest of the world. But then, lots of us will still have satcoms.

A bunch of test workers and delivery and logistics workers will have to come to Hong Kong (supplemented by local workforce, this will effectively be running a nationalised Deliveroo) to carry this out.
Housing will be have to be found for them, this will be the biggest invasion since 1941.
We'll get a hukou registration system before the end of it. It may be kept on after the pandemic.

I don't want to engage in hyperbole - such as cauterising the SAR - but these are the ways I think they think they can return HKSAR back to Covid Zero. They aren't exactly killing the patient to do it, but they will be irreversibly changing the DNA of the SAR in their attempts to get to their goals. They started with ELAB and the NSL anyway.

Honestly, isn't that a good idea? Setting up a proper immigration policy that attracts those willing to work, but also give them a way for it (past-covid) that might eventually even lead to citizenship (Japan, for example, is doing this totally wrong, and thus failing, despite urgent need for it) after 10-15 years if having a proper "work and stay history".

Pretty much what Switzerland and other developed countries do (and we're among the countries receiving the most legal immigration world-wide, so I guess it's kinda working..)

Attracting talents, rather than dodgy "English teachers", and giving them a long-term perspective, should be the way forward.

I don’t disagree with you in theory but returning to covid zero is pretty much impossible at this point. They would have to have done these measures this week, every day they don’t do this it spirals out of control more. Going back to “covid zero” after you have 30000 cases per day (which will happen soon enough) is pointless.

Let us not forget that HK had actual covid zero for months and the mainland still did not open the border. Don’t even know what the point is anymore

This is veering off topic but China doesn’t care at all about foreigners working there and COVID has strengthened this point. The foreigner green card one can get in China is still pretty useless. They also don’t want normal people gaining Chinese citizenship, especially with the law against dual citizenship* still in place.

* at the risk of this devolving into a political discussion I’ll leave it there.

1. Don't forget they have the ability to make us die while they're trying.

2. Compliance with national policy is an obligation, doesn't mean we will necessarily get any benefits at the end of it.

Not according to “our” Chief Secretary Lee - Zero is still the goal ???? i-CABLE - ???????????????????????????

Meanwhile Rachel Chan is vowing more distancing measures, so lockdown looks more and more likely
https://www.hk01.com/article/737970?...edium=referral

Please accept my apologies for missing this and subsequent posts on the same subtopic.

Like many others back in 2010, I used to work on business visas. The RP became an important requirement about 5 years ago. The first one is honestly a serious PITA (e.g. you need to get all sorts of documents notarized; I even went to DC to pull this off at the State Department and the PRC consulate). Paying Vincent his $750 is well worth it in this case because he provides a complete plan of attack.

Renewals only cost around $500. It's still worth using Vincent for this IMO because his 关系 is quite good. You do need to go to Pudong at least once in person, but his staff will meet you there. He does require that you work for a real company.

ETA: During the visa days, I always did the drill myself at consulates. This plan of attack no longer works, as noted.