Migrant workers are good for Hong Kong and should not be scapegoated for the failures of the elites

There is an increasing tendency among certain political opportunists and radicals to attribute Hong Kong’s socioeconomic problems to migrants – predominantly, but not exclusively, the 150 mainland Chinese individuals granted permanent one-way permits to migrate into the city daily.

From overcrowded hospitals to pedestrian zones rapidly running out of space, from economic competition over low-skilled jobs to fighting over basic commodities, migrants are an easy, visceral target – and the political advantage in weaponising them lies in the established insider-outsider dichotomy of how we view those not born or raised in Hong Kong. 

On a local level, it is understandable in that the resentment fuelling such rhetoric stems from decades of governmental mismanagement of urgent concerns that Hong Kong’s poor and downtrodden, in particular, must grapple with – while the wealth of the wealthiest surges, the disempowered in Hong Kong face unaffordable prices and declining quality in both infrastructure and public services.

On a global scale, such rhetoric is reminiscent, perhaps, of the paranoia permeating movements such as the Leave campaign in the Brexit referendum, the xenophobic nationalism fuelling support for Donald Trump, and disillusionment about the neoliberal order expressed by France’s ”yellow vests” movement. The elites – globally and locally – have failed to meet the basic demands of the population, and they have turned to reactionary belligerence.