>I think that would give the HKers access to the Pacific and a place to rebuild. I'd love to have those brilliant entrepreneurs and engineers over here.

Not many special "brilliant entrepreneurs". Just regular ole entrepreneurs taking advantage of the specific spot HK was in, and the specific relationship between Britain and China for global trade.

Merely bring the same people elsewhere would accomplish no great miracle.

It's not like taking SV-based VCs and programmers into e.g. Oklahome (where they'd just make a new hotspot, since their skills are carried with them).

It's more like taking the people in the tourist industry of Miami and moving them to Maine. It just wont work as well, since it was all about location in the first place...

There's nothing particularly special about SV VCs /programmers. Just a crapload of capital allocated there. Programmers are abundant throughout the country.

>There's nothing particularly special about SV VCs programmers. Just a crapload of capital allocated there

A crapload of capital tends to statistically attract the best programmers. Some of the biggest problems to solve/employers being there, ditto.

In other words, my comment wasn't about born and raised SV VC/programmers. It was about VC/programmers working in SV.

Not sure if I agree. Maimi tourism shifting to Maine is totally different beast since tourism by definition relies on local sights.

SV-based entrepreneurs are already going to places like Austin and Portland. It takes time.

It would quicker if we get 3 million people situated in an abstract region of US since the critical mass to get the ball rolling would already have been achieved. It would be a challenge, but not for the reasons you've dilineated.

>Not sure if I agree. Maimi tourism shifting to Maine is totally different beast since tourism by definition relies on local sights.

But that's my point. The success of HK businesses also relies on the location (and it's special status).

I checked the special status, that's pretty compelling - their tax haven incentives.

I think these types of regions can be created elsewhere but I totally see your point.

Tax haven status, plus the mere location -- being an port in that (very important) area, with ties to two very important countries...

While it wouldn't be exactly like HK, being a semi-autonomous territory of the US would allow the new goverment/economy to be in a unique position. Imagine, for example, if New-HK was allowed to set their own tariffs and taxes for goods coming into/out of their ports, while maintaining 100% free trade with the continental US.

>Imagine, for example, if New-HK was allowed to set their own tariffs and taxes for goods coming into/out of their ports, while maintaining 100% free trade with the continental US.

So this new territory could undercut every US-based port on tariffs, then ship everything to the USA consumer anyway? I don't see anyone agreeing to that deal.

Sorry but after watching the organized demonstrators against the CCP regime, I strongly disagree. And Miami itself is an interesting example you chose. Miami is made up of largely Cuban immigrants and their descendants who fled communism in Cuba only to succeed by and large in capitalist USA. They created a thriving ethnic community in South Florida and were given opportunities they would never have been able to achieve under the thumb of Castro.

No one wants to live in planned cities. Virtually all of them are failures. What's to stop any of them simply getting on a bus to Seattle or San Diego? Are you going to put the army around this territory?

It's quite amusing the hypothetical lengths people will go to "caring" but still straight up open about not letting foreigners into their actual country.

we (US) should just give them all path to citizenship. No, special territory is a horrible idea.

Nah I think in HK's case it would be awesome. They'd have the autonomy to set up their own laws and regulations similar to what they currently have. I know this is a pie in the sky proposal but in my ideal world this would be a thing.

China would inevitably claim that it's part of China since it was granted to Hong Kongers exclusively, and Hong Kong is part of China.

It'd be like Crimea all over again, except China could have a legal argument that it's theirs instead of just claiming soldiers are vacationing there.

>It'd be like Crimea all over again

I don't see China invading the west coast of the USA without a fight. A really big fight. And for what?

Give Hong Kongers a piece of land and they wouldn’t even claim it’s an invasion. It’d be a piece of land given exclusively to people from China. In what world would China say that it isn’t theirs? They’ve claimed land with far shakier backing. Literally all they’d need to do is bus in a few loyal people, set them up to take power, and have them hand it over to Beijing.

Because that’s exactly what’s happening with HK now and people here are saying it was a dumb idea. Why repeat it?

It would be flatly illegal per the fourteenth amendment. We don't have special classes of citizens in the USA, period. Doing this constitutionally would require something like ceding the territory to a new government or something.

That sounds like a terrible idea. That would give china an excuse to try to kick the us out of asia.

If you mean our military bases in Japan and South Korea, who have no great trust of China, I'm not sure why China's opinion would be relevant there. If it's not controversial for Britain to offer them citizenship then it shouldn't be for US either. Even if it is...you gotta stand up to communism.

> If it's not controversial for Britain to offer them citizenship then it shouldn't be for US either

China objects strongly. It says these are Chinese citizens and Britain ceased to have any claim over the territory decades ago.

Of course since Britain's offer exists only on paper (there is no mechanism proposed by which a typical person in Hong Kong should actually make use of the offer to leave) the Chinese objection likewise extends only to paper.

Unless China proposes to keep its own citizens prisoners there’s not much it can do to stop them taking up the offer.

Which it has been known to do....

I wish HKer in the U.S. and Britain can have their own system (One country Two system). Otherwise it is worse than China.

Rather than just downvoting I'll ask: how do you see the US and UK being worse than China?

I think we should let the UK pay for its sins for a change. Setting up anything "autonomous" with its own laws and customs is a terrible idea. Assimilation should be a requirement for immigration.

Really, are Puerto Rico and Guam really that bad of a concept? I don't think so. Most of the western US was simply U.S. territory for decades.

Puerto Rico doesn't make much sense to me - they should either be a state and have the full rights and federal oversight that every other state does, or be their own thing entirely. Living in this limbo world where you're a citizen but sometimes in name only if you're on the island seems wrong.

They’re in a limbo because they don’t agree on what should happen. In the most recent real referendum (2012), a plurality slightly short of a majority wanted to maintain the status quo. But the rest were split: some wanted statehood, but the others wanted to be independent.

Note that Puerto Ricans are fully citizens. The island itself doesn’t have representation in Congress because it’s not a state. (Which is a legal thing that’s distinct from the people who live in the state! The “United States” isn’t just a name, it has legal significance.)

I agree for the historical reasons, but I don't think it should be left to Puerto Rico if they can't decide. The US should just say we are (state-hooding/evicting) you, unless you decide one way or the other. Along those same lines, I also think DC should gain representation in congress in some manner, either by largely becoming part of VA, or by becoming a 51st state(DC has more people than Wyoming or Vermont, and about as much as Alaska).

The people of Hong Kong are "paying" a hell of a lot more than the British.

That's always the case in anything colonial-like. I don't see why we should intervene though. "Autonomy" in the US means Sharia Law in Minnesota, unfortunately. We don't know how to do it well, if it can be done "well" at all.