Reluctant Exiles? Migration from Hong Kong and the New Overseas Chinese

Abstract

The Kong Becoming China multi-volume series is published for an international readership. It aims to provide both expert analysis and the documentary basis for an informed understanding of Hong Kong's transition as a free society and capitalist economy toward socialist Chinese sovereignty under the country, Two systems formula. This series explores the crucial dimensions of Hong Kong's current developments in this transitional process, as well as their global implications. Emigration from Hong Kong in the second half of the 1980s and the early 1990s has given rise to considerable concern. This 5th volume in the series assesses the factors causing this migration, and examines the consequences for Hong Kong, for the various destination cities and countries, and for the migrants themselves. The characteristics of the migrants, their involvement in local economies and societies, and problems of adaptation are discussed. One of the themes of the book is the ambivalence between Hong Kong people seeing themselves as reluctant exiles on the one hand, and the drive to establish global business and professional networks on the other.