Immigrants in Hong Kong

I share Tom Plate’s image of Asians (“The Global Future Has an Asian Face,” Commentary, April 23), except for what he describes as “a positive attitude” toward large numbers of illegal immigrants. Citing a Korean professor, Plate links this attitude to the Hong Kong miracle. True, Hong Kong did accommodate large numbers of illegal immigrants, but the attitude toward this was and is far from positive. The flow of illegals into Hong Kong has largely been stopped, due primarily to effective agreements with China and a system of ID cards that are hard to obtain and that must be shown on many occasions. In Hong Kong a year ago I noted that illegal immigration was as common a topic of news and conversation as it is here in Southern California. Partly this is because it is such a hot topic across the border in southern China. There, whole new cities are completely enclosed with high fences to prevent illegal immigration from other parts of China. In the areas that are not fenced in, the complaints about immigrants are as bitter as one can imagine (“they maim their children to send them here to beg” was a new one on me).

In Hong Kong and Malaysia illegals from Vietnam are currently being forcibly returned (the U.S. may ultimately accept some of them). Plate surely knows that Japan, which has had its own economic miracle, is remarkable for its resistance to immigration, legal or otherwise.

DONALD E. BROWN

Professor of Anthropology

Santa Barbara