Hong Kong migrant numbers booming, as poll makes city edgy

Hong Kongers are heading to Australia in large numbers, with a 27 per cent rise in visas issued in the past two years.

‘Hidden agenda’: Hong Kong’s chief executive Leung Chun-ying. Picture: AP

Hong Kongers are heading to Australia in large numbers again, as they did before the 1997 handover, with a 27 per cent rise in visas issued in the past two years as their upcoming election on Sunday polar­ises the city as never before.

For many reasons, the number visiting has risen from 117,000 to 148,000. There has also been a surge in applications for citizenship for children older than 12 months, many of them born here.

The election has turned into a battle of the generations, with candidates in their early 20s fighting for autonomy, “localism” and even independence — though the elect­oral commission has controversially banned six candidates for failing to pledge sufficiently convincingly to support the constit­ution that insists Hong Kong remain an integral part of China.

The election is the first in this “special administrative region” of seven million since the mass ­Umbrella Movement pro-democracy rallies of 2014 won global ­attention, angered Beijing and ­cemented the support of much of the rising generation.

As campaigning intensified, the former administrative head of Hong Kong, Anson Chan, who is visiting Australia for a lecture tour next month, accused chief executive Leung Chun-ying of provoking pro-independence rhetoric.

“It almost leads me to believe that the chief executive has a hidden agenda,’’ Ms Chan said.

“It’s to create such havoc in Hong Kong that he has more ­reasons to persuade Beijing that a strong pair of hands is needed to keep Hong Kong in control.”