125,000 Hong Kongers have come to the UK. Where are they?

The Revd Dave Ho Young wasn’t interested in being Chinese when he was growing up. After his parents’ divorce, he was brought up by his British mother in Shropshire, while his Cantonese father moved back to Hong Kong. These days, the Revd’s Chinese heritage plays a bigger part in his life: his evangelical C of E church, St Barnabas in Leeds, has become a gathering place for the city’s newly arrived Hong Kong émigrés.

Two years ago, Britain opened the route to residency for Hong Kong Chinese who hold British National (Overseas) passports, after the National Security Law imposed by the Chinese Communist party ended the city’s ‘one country, two systems’ arrangement with the mainland. Since then, 125,000 Hong Kongers have entered the UK, which makes this one of the largest migrant waves modern Britain has ever seen. Yet their arrival has been met with very little trouble or backlash.

In some parts of the country, local communities are changing. Hong Kongers now make up a quarter of Revd Young’s congregation. I met some of them earlier this year. Not all were religious, but they all found the church’s embrace helpful when it came to finding their way in a new country. For two hours every Thursday morning, the church hall chairs are arranged in circles. Volunteers, mainly retired churchgoers, help the immigrants practise English and teach them about British life. ‘Most often they ask me for gardening advice,’ Revd Young says. ‘Most of them have never had gardens before.’ In return, the Hong Kongers are teaching him Cantonese, his father’s tongue.

The government has little accurate information on the new arrivals – who they are and where they’ve gone – because these are not typical political refugees. They’re skilled and moneyed, which means they require little from government services by way of welfare or asylum, but it also means it’s easier for them to fall off the radar.