Wrestling with a tidal wave of refugees from Syria or anywhere else

Almost everyone in Hong Kong is a migrant seeking a better life. Our migrants walked across Lowu Bridge, climbed over the border hills, hid in trucks, or dodged shark attacks while swimming across Mirs Bay.

We took in dehydrated Vietnamese refugees on sinking boats, when a number of countries refused them. Less dramatically, most of us just flew in. As the writer Nuri Vittachi says, “I’m a classic HK success story: I arrived with $19 in my pocket and now I owe $4 million to Hang Seng Bank!”

The mass migration from Syria to Germany through many controlled borders is unparalleled in modern times. There are four million refugees outside Syria’s borders and they are travelling to Germany at a rate of 800,000 a year. At least 18,000 migrants arrived last weekend. Tens of thousands are still flowing across the Mediterranean from Africa. We know from Hong Kong’s experience that the more who ‘touch base’; the more will come.

Most of these migrants feel that they would just be better off in a rich, well-governed country. They seek life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Most are fit young men whose only danger comes from climbing through razor wire or surviving a sea crossing in an open boat. They may have ‘acquired’ money from friends, families and fools to pay the snakeheads. They may include opportunistic freeloaders who merge into the throngs of migrating families.

We want to give these people the chance of a lifetime but not another chance in a lifetime. Is it fair to let them jump the queue? Already Britain and Australia have agreed to fractionally increase their immigration quotas, rewarding legitimate immigrants who apply through the proper channels by taking people only from the camps outside Syria.

We want migrants young enough to integrate and to work hard for low money. We don’t like it when they live in ghettos, when they speak in a strange language. They have different foods and smells. Goodness, they might be a different colour. We don’t want their cultural values (like restricting the rights of women) in our country.