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....