It is clear that it is Beijing rather than Hong Kong that took the initiative to snap the decades-long policy of permitting nationals of the Republic of India to get admitted into Hong Kong without a visa and stay there for a fortnight. The explanation given is that a few citizens of this country have “overstayed” in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China after having entered this former colony of the UK, which reverted to China only in 1997. This is clearly an excuse. More than 99% of visitors from India come for business or tourism. Moreover, unlike nationals of some of the EU nations, visitors from India do not get involved in the nascent independence movement of the former colony, where the English language is still spoken far more often and by many more locals than is the case on the mainland, where English is still uncommon. While the language is absent in the countryside and in smaller towns, even in big cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, those able to converse in the world’s link language are low in number, unlike in Hong Kong. The absence of a visa requirement has resulted in hundreds of thousands of visitors coming to Hong Kong from across India, each spending money and creating jobs in the former colony. There is also a large community of businesspersons from India in Hong Kong, and these serve as a bridge to the mainland and its markets. The fact that our citizens have thus far enjoyed visa free access has meant that it has been easy to bring relatives and friends over for short stays, a factor which has made Hong Kong a more attractive place to run a business from than Singapore, which insists on a visa before being permitted to enter the city-state. Thus far, despite the immense economic benefits that Singapore enjoys because of its links with India, the Ministry of External Affairs has not been able to persuade the authorities to grant visa free access to Indians, the way some other countries do and which gain far less from the policies adopted by Delhi. Now Hong Kong has followed the path of Singapore, and in the process ensured a substantial fall in the number of tourists from India visiting Hong Kong.
Another sector likely to get impacted is civil aviation. A large number of airlines offer flights to China and the US via Hong Kong, and the absence of a visa has made this an attractive proposition for several travellers, especially if flights get delayed. The withdrawal of automatic entry privileges to citizens of the world’s most populous democracy by Hong Kong is a less than friendly and helpful decision done at the instance of authorities in Beijing. This move has created an opportunity for Taiwan. Should this prosperous and friendly island nation allow visa free entry for Indians, not only will tourism boom but also the aviation sector. Several airlines may shift their operations from Hong Kong to Taipei, which could compete with Singapore and Bangkok as a transit hub for citizens from South Asia’s largest country. Scope for tourism in Taiwan is immense. Recently a millionaire from the subcontinent held an opulent wedding in Taipei, and all the guests were delighted to be in that city, which is the capital of a state that is fully democratic and whose leader, President Tsai Ing-wen, is a good friend of India. Through cellphones and in other ways, it would be a simple matter to track those who are overstaying, especially if cellphone and stay details of each visitor are collected at the point of entry into Taiwan. Shifting the axis of transit and tourism off the East Asian coast from Hong Kong to Taiwan makes sense in a context where Beijing seems determined to deliver pinprick after pinprick to India. The withdrawal of visa free entry into Hong Kong is a slap on the collective faces of 1.26 billion citizens of the oldest democracy in Asia and needs to be met with reciprocal measures, especially were Taipei to fill the void soon to be left by Hong Kong.