After the government of Hong Kong passed article 23 in March, immigration has been on the top of the minds of most residents.
As Hong Kong is under tight control of China, thousands of residents are relocating to the UK permanently. The relocating wave of residents are leaving their retirement money which is trapped in the Asian financial hub.
Ideally, people leaving Hong Kong on a long-term basis are eligible and entitled to access to their savings that they have put together in Hong Kong’s compulsory pension system. Regardless of their employment status the mandatory provident Fund helps in savings. Although as per the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority, Hong Kongers who use the British National (Overseas) passport to emigrate are not allowed to withdraw their money before the retirement age of 65.
The people that are moving to the UK and are not being able to access their pension money have many visible financial impacts. Recent news involves a woman who feared the repercussions from her role in the protests and left Hong Kong, now has about thousands of dollars stuck in her pension fund. Similarly, a middle aged man was shut out of his $60,000 who was born and raised in Hong Kong but swore to never return. While another man who is facing difficulties in buying an apartment in the UK as his down payment is stuck on the other side of the world.
After the government of Hong Kong passed article 23 in March, immigration has been on the top of the minds of most residents. A domestic security law which has been criticised by foreign government for curbing fundamental freedom and fast tracked by Beijing.
“With Article 23, there will be more people trying to leave Hong Kong, more people trying to get early withdrawals to build their new lives, and more denials,” said Megan Khoo, research and policy advisor at Hong Kong Watch. More than 43.8 billion in retirement savings since 2021 have been denied access to the people who have used BN(O) to emigrate to the UK.
People born before Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997 have the right to move to the UK with their families with the BN(O) passport. It gives them a pathway to access full British citizenship. An expanded route by the then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2021 for more than 140,000 people for emigration. According to the most recent UK government data, applications for BN(O) passports were at their highest in over two years in the first quarter of 2024, tripling to 9,693 from the previous period.
The Geopolitical Tension
Ever since Hong Kong was handed back to China by the UK, the city has been functioning as two systems under one country principle. It means that Hong Kong will be a part of China but retains its own economic and social systems. In fact, the city’s mini constitution requires the city to make its own law to protect national security, a mandate that has drawn controversy for decades.
Many democratic advocates feared that the city laws would restrict basic freedom and hence many protests took place across the city from 2019. This went on until Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020 which wiped out most of the activist groups. This marked a turning point for some to come up with an escape plan.
A 56-year-old business man who was born and raised in Hong Kong and had set up a successful food transport company began to fear for the future after the 2020 security law. Therefore he moved to Manchester in 2022 with his BN(O) passport. In March 2023, he started the process of claiming $65,000 from his HSBC pension account in Hong Kong. He faced the issue of the bank not recognising his BN(O) passport as an official document which would give him access to his cash.
