Tourists look out at Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, China, on May 1.Brent Lewin/Bloomberg
Her parents emigrated from China to Canada. She grew up in Vancouver, speaking Chinese and English, and now she's moved to Hong Kong, where she's bought an apartment and is working full-time for a Chinese company.
What do you call such people? Some would say they're fully Chinese, without any Canadian identity, but happen to possess a Canadian passport of convenience. The parents used Vancouver or Toronto as a launch pad to become an "astronaut family" with "satellite kids," located in Canada but rooted to China. The suggestion that there are thousands of such people, legally Canadian but with no ties, is central to the Harper government's proposed immigration reforms.
Others suggest that such Chinese-Canadians are "circular migrants," using their family ties to build a life in a Chinese city but maintaining their basic Canadian identity, values and connections, fully intending to return to Canada and raise their families here.
In short: Are such people best described as Chinese who happen to have lived once in Canada, or Canadians who happen to be living in China?
This is not a small phenomenon: There is an astounding population of almost 300,000 Canadians, most of Chinese ancestry, living in Hong Kong; 83 per cent of them have dual Chinese and Canadian citizenship. The question of whether they are fully integrated Canadians or merely Chinese with handy passports has major policy implications.
Until recently, this was a matter only for political rhetoric and speculation, as there had been surprisingly few efforts to answer it factually. Now three Canadian scholars have gone to China in an attempt to answer it definitely.
In a new research paper, sociologists Miu Chung Yan and Sean Lauer at the University of British Columbia and Ching Man Lam at the Chinese University of Hong Kong have examined the lives, beliefs and aspirations of young Chinese-Canadians working in Hong Kong, using focus-group interviews and field studies.
They found that "the lack of opportunities in Canada," rather than any preference for China, was the primary reason for almost all of these youth moving to Hong Kong. Many worked in fields such as finance where they felt Canada had a glass ceiling for ethnic-Chinese employees: "The nature and systemic discrimination of the Canadian job market pushed many new-generation youth to seek alternative job opportunities."
Most of them, however, spent much of their time in Hong Kong attempting to maintain a "Canadian" lifestyle. "This," the researchers note, "includes drinking in bars, watching hockey, reading Canadian newspapers, and drinking Starbucks coffee." (Tim Hortons, it should be noted, is not available in Hong Kong).
"While I am at work, in a break," one of their research subjects says, "I'm watching a Canucks game through my iPhone."
And furthermore, they found that the Chinese-Canadians weren't fitting in to local Hong Kong social circles, because they were determined to keep their Canadian ties: "This group of Chinese-Canadian youth seem to have made a conscious choice not to hang out with local youth, due to their resistance to local Chinese culture. Indeed, their desire for Canadian connections was manifested in the patterns of their social circles, which also showed their detachment from Hong Kong society."
Most, they found, were experiencing some form of culture shock – while they had the language skills and citizenship necessary to work and live in Hong Kong, they did not feel like Chinese, even if they had lived there for years. "Being Canadian, many felt that they came with a Canadian perspective that differentiated them from local Chinese. They also tended to use Canadian cultural values and practices to distinguish themselves from local Chinese."
A majority described themselves as Canadian first and Chinese second. And, most importantly, almost all described themselves as "tentatively temporary" immigrants, who fully intended to return to Canada, which they saw as "home," to put down roots and raise their families at some point in the future.
Another such study, conducted in 2012 in India, found the same result: Second-generation Indian-Canadians living in India saw themselves as Canadians living in India for convenience and money, not as Indians who'd once lived in Canada for convenience.
While there are undoubtedly some Canadian passport holders living abroad who are simply using the citizenship as a convenience, actual research suggests that the majority of such people are loyal Canadians who are using their international connections to benefit their country – which, as they see it, is Canada.
Doug Saunders