Short rant and some thoughts about the left and immigration:
I commented below in response to the post about Putin’s blaming “mass immigration” for destroying European culture, and thought maybe to expand a bit more from that comment.
It’s been a bit unsettling for me this week because of the overreaction spontaneously erupted on the Chinese internet regarding the K visa. As a country not known for its openness for immigration, for about an 48-hour window, this was perhaps the first time that many - based on an unsubstantiated rumor - have had to grapple with the anxiety of facing “mass immigration”.
Although I’ve seen widespread latent and casual racism and xenophobia over the years, especially against Indians, this is really the first time that such spontaneous eruption of anti-immigration discourse that occurred in a very organic fashion, when the “fear of mass immigration” is suddenly being perceived as real instead of something you’d never thought could happen in your country.
The short version is that China announced a new K visa for foreign STEM talents back in August that would be implemented on October 1st, without much attention paid to it. Then last month, Trump imposed a $100k free on H-1B, and Western media started reporting on how China is going to benefit from it, and pointed to China’s K visa policy.
Somehow, someone put the two together and just 2-3 days before the National Day when the K visa was due to be officially implemented, fearmongering rumors began to spread virally on Chinese social media, insinuating that how it opens up the floodgates for foreigners to enter China.
To be fair, the policy announcement appears half-baked without much detail about how exactly it is going to be implemented, so it leaves people more confused than ever. You can apply for the visa if you are:
- 18-45 years old
- Holds a STEM bachelors degree from a “renowned” school or work in a “renowned” institute
- No language requirement
- No employment requirement
The biggest problem here lies in what exactly is the purpose of the K visa?
I doubt any foreigner who don’t speak Mandarin Chinese semi-proficiently will ever get hired by Chinese companies because most of them are absolutely not equipped to communicate in another language. So, where are these people going to find work?
If we’re talking about foreign talents working in academia, then there is already an R visa “high-level foreign talents” for top people in the field, yet the simple requirement here is simply holding a bachelors degree.
Finally, if we’re talking about foreign multinational corporations that are indeed equipped to accommodate English speakers, then these companies have their own recruitment process, competitive application process and visa sponsorship, not to mention very limited spots usually only available for the top graduates.
As such, it is easy to see where there is plenty of room for imagination, and fearmongering conspiracies were abound, with plenty of comments like “I can finally understand what MAGA / rednecks (红脖子) are going through in their country”.
In general, the complaints took on a few flavors (cw: racism, obviously):
- More competition in the labor market - “we already have plenty of Masters and PhD graduates with couldn’t find jobs, why are we trying to attract more foreigners with only Bachelor’s degree?” - this is the one I consider to be the most valid criticism.
- Anxiety about immigrants flooding the country - “We don’t want low-quality (“inferior”, 劣质) foreigners to flood our country! Have you seen how Indians have built an entire industry of “fake qualifications” to game the Western immigration system?” - this obviously refer to Indians and Africans whom many only know of through the most uncharitable stereotypes propagated through online viral content and have never interacted with any of them in real life
- Anxiety about “losers back home” Westerners - “Who do you think are the foreigners (洋人) that would want to come here? Obviously those who are losers who could no longer compete in their own countries!”
- Latent sexual anxiety about foreigners coming in and marrying the local women - this really just follows an already intensifying gender discourse(TM) taking place since the past year, in a country where there is already gender imbalance, and an ongoing trend where marriage registration has been trending down and divorce rates have been trending up (apparently has a lot to do with economic downturn).
- It’s actually a backdoor for rich overseas Chinese who have emigrated to come back - this is, funnily enough, the most likely explanation for the government’s policy that has remained so obscure, but what do we know?
Nonetheless, the actual reasons are not important. What is interesting, and scary, is the overreaction against the perceived “threat” of mass immigration, which was likely a culmination of a combination of factors, including the precariousness of the average people who are anxious about the unstable job market and economic uncertainty, being persistently fed with widespread viral content that propagate the most uncharitable stereotype about other countries, as well as the intensifying antagonism between the sexes as less and less people are interested in settling down to raise a family.
Typically, as leftists, we would associate this kind of anti-immigration anger to be intrinsic to capitalist countries, because the capitalists want the working class to hate each other. But how can you explain the situation in China?
A point to make here is that there is also increasing cognitive dissonance between perceiving one own’s country to have become a great superpower with the many advanced technologies, surpassing even the West, yet at the same time they are working harder and longer hours than ever, no stability in the job market, wages are barely rising, quality of life is not improving, the house prices remain far out of reach, and there is a general pessimistic outlook for future.
To give you an example, imagine you went through your primary school in the 2000s, chances are in a few years, your parents would soon purchase a new house, one that would be a huge upgrade over your childhood home in some provincial town. Things look to be getting better by the day, and you dream about doing the same one day.
Then, you went through middle/high school hoping to score in gaokao to get into university, obtain a degree and get a nice paying job post-college, settle down and raise a family. There was already some alarming trend about the property market, and the house prices are starting to look a bit out of reach, but nothing too much to worry yet.
By the time you are studying in university, the property price would have peaked and plunged. It would have been a good thing if it weren’t such a drag on the entire economy, and you are suddenly facing a worse prospect that you never thought would happen growing up: unemployment, or the poor prospect of getting employed.
This is how fast an economic trend can go in China - what takes several generations of wealth accumulation to happen in Western capitalist countries, it can happen in 10-15 years in China. You are literally experiencing the rise and fall in real time, and there is obviously a lot of cognitive dissonance to take in.
Yes, the country is now a superpower. We have the most advanced 6th gen fighter. We have the best EV industries in the world. The best robotics and automation in industries. But - is that making your life easier? Why are you only getting two off-days per month? Why are you still being asked to work overtime by your boss every damn week? Despite being more productive than ever, why are your wages not rising?
All of this anxiety is being coalesced into a latent rage. It is perhaps not surprising that people would lash out when they hear some fearmongering rumor about mass immigration.
And I think there’s some lesson for the left here when it comes to immigration:
- You better make sure you can create a system with a robust social safety net, minimum wage, job guarantee, free housing and healthcare that are all sacred rights to the workers.
- You must be able to convince the people that they are getting the fair distribution of wealth in the economy that are in proportion with their labor.
- You must be able to convincingly demonstrate that you have the economic means to implement all these policies in a fair manner, and that foreigners seeking employment in your country is not here to take away the wealth and the fruits of their labor, nor are they here to drive down wages and cause competition in the labor market.
Multiple wipes later and it's close to midnight, while most of us had to go to school or work the next day.