This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
More than 80% of Hong Kongers who recently settled in the United Kingdom amid an ongoing crackdown on political dissent plan to stay permanently, despite considerable challenges integrating into British society, according to a recent survey.
More than 80% of 637 valid responses to a integration survey by the campaign group Hongkongers in Britain said they “intend to permanently settle in the U.K.,” with more than 40% saying they were “not considering going back to Hong Kong, regardless of the disadvantages they face in the U.K..”
More than 200,000 Hong Kongers have applied to the British government’s lifeboat British National Overseas visa scheme, which offers a route to permanent residency and eventual citizenship, since the scheme’s launch in January 2021.
The exodus from Hong Kong came after the authorities began a crackdown in the wake of the 2019 protest movement under two stringent ‘national security‘ laws banning public criticism of the government or connections with overseas groups and democracy activists in exile. Other popular destinations include Canada, Australia and the United States.
Yet life hasn’t been easy, with more than 46% forced to switch careers and 50% reporting a salary cut since moving to the U.K., the survey found.
“Hong Kong immigrants are experiencing higher than average levels of distress,” according to the survey, published to the Hongkongers in Britain website. “While the distress is not severe, it is significant enough to warrant concern.”
Rights groups last week called on the British government to further expand the British National Overseas visa scheme and slash their university tuition fees in response to the March 2024 passage of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, commonly known as ‘Article 23’ legislation, which followed the 2020 National Security Law in a further blow to the city’s freedoms.
Citing the ongoing threat of surveillance, harassment and violence by agents and supporters of the Chinese state, the London-based group Hong Kong Watch said the British government should address the deterioration of rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, responding to the needs of BNO Hong Kongers living in the UK, and protect them from the threat of transnational repression.
‘High levels of loneliness’
While life satisfaction scores for recently migrated Hong Kongers were “neutral,” students and the unemployed reported the highest loneliness scores, while Hong Kongers overall didn’t seem to be well-integrated into British society, according to the survey.
“Hong Kong immigrants have a moderate score in contact with people outside the household, trust in the U.K. people, social network support, belonging to the neighborhood, but they still find themselves very lonely,” the survey said.
“Hong Kong immigrants exhibit high levels of loneliness … [which] may suggest that they do not feel psychologically comfortable with the locals, indicating a lack of shared cultural resonance,” it said, adding that further research is needed.
Hongkongers in Britain’s Research Director Damen Woo said the survey had employed the GHQ-12 mental health questionnaire, which gauges levels of psychological distress on a scale of 0 to 36.
“Unemployed people and students recorded very high GHQ scores, indicating that they are facing severe or obvious psychological distress,” Woo told RFA Cantonese. “Particularly unemployed Hong Kongers, whose average score was 18.3, close to the 20 level indicating serious distress.”
Meanwhile, students notched up a score of 15.68 points indicating “obvious distress”, Woo said.
The team used the UCLA Three-point Loneliness Scale for the study, in which a score of 7 indicates significant loneliness.
‘Be brave’
Economically inactive Hong Kongers, who included retirees, scored at average of 6.8 points, while students and the unemployed reported scores of more than 8, Woo said.
“Unemployed Hong Kongers are more likely to feel lonely because they have fewer opportunities for interaction with others and may not have much of a social circle,” he said.
“But it’s disturbing and worthy of attention that students also feel lonely,” Woo said. “Further research is needed to find out why.”
A 17-year-old Hong Konger who gave only the pseudonym Wing for fear of reprisals said she moved to the U.K. with his family last year.
“When I first moved to England, it was the first time I had ever studied so far from home, and I didn’t have a lot of friends here,” she said. “I had to familiarize myself with everything from scratch.”
“I had to make new friends, so I was fairly lonely at the beginning, when I’d just arrived,” Wing said, adding that the feelings lasted “two or three months.”
She advised people in a similar situation to “be brave and take the initiative to make friends, because the British people aren’t as bad as you think.”
“If you’re willing to talk to them, they will be willing to be friends with you,” Wing said.
