In just a few days, a niche term called “K Visa” has become popular across the country.
The so-called “K Visa” is a new type of ordinary visa added by China on August 7th this year, specifically for “foreign young scientific and technological talents,” and will be officially implemented tomorrow (October 1st).
Such a visa policy, which has no practical relationship with most people and is not even a matter of vested interests, has caused a huge uproar in domestic public opinion. In fact, in the month or so after this policy was announced, public opinion was almost calm, and it only “exploded” in the last few days.
Just as Comrade Hu Xijin said: “Before the K visa even started to be implemented, many people’s opposition arose.”
Does the “K Visa” really affect the interests of Chinese people, especially by seizing the job opportunities of young people in China, as social media portrays?
This might just be a story of “the wolf is coming.”
01
So far, there are no detailed rules for the “K Visa,” only a framework-style “Five Questions and Five Answers” released by relevant departments in mid-August.
The “Five Questions and Five Answers” are rather empty, and perhaps only this sentence has any information:
K-visa is issued to foreign young scientific and technological talents who have graduated from well-known universities or research institutions at home and abroad in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and have obtained corresponding academic degrees (bachelor’s degree or above), or who are engaged in related professional education and scientific research in the above-mentioned institutions.
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, isn’t this the STEM that almost every primary and secondary school student’s parents in China know?
I repeatedly read the “Five Questions and Five Answers” several times, trying to read some “profound meaning” from it, but it ended in failure.
However, on social media, many experts have interpreted many doomsday scenarios, such as some people claiming that “the K-visa is a possible adjustment to immigration policies that will have a profound impact on the domestic talent market, social structure, and national security.”
According to these people’s interpretation, China has significantly lowered the threshold for foreigners to work in China. To put it mildly, it will seriously impact the already extremely competitive job market; to put it bluntly, a large number of foreign low-end populations will flood in, putting huge pressure on domestic social security and immigration management.
A “Five Questions and Five Answers” of the K-visa with little information was actually rendered by social media with the tone of “Five Barbarians in Chaos,” which makes people sigh with the question of what time it is.
02
The reason why the K-visa quickly gained popularity is largely because it is linked to a certain unspoken national sentiment of the Chinese people: Indians are coming.
According to online rumors, it is said that Indian media has been highly concerned about China’s K-visa in recent days, and some Indian college students are eager to try. Hu Xijin also loudly appealed:
Please, the Chinese embassies and consulates in India keep a close eye on the K-visa stamps, and in principle, they should not easily issue K-visas to their graduates.
For a time, many people were stunned by the prospect of Indians flooding into China to snatch jobs, and panic and nationalism were mixed together, making the “731 Unit” that was popular in the cinema a while ago outdated.
The “Indianophobia” of netizens cannot be said to be without any reason. After all, in the past few months, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan have successively exposed news of tightening immigration, and Indians, due to their huge immigration volume, have indeed become one of the protagonists. For example, the US recently tightened H-1B visas, and Indians got 71% last year.
But if you think about it carefully, this set of “grand strategy” of Indians flooding into China has a fatal bug: why do Indians want to come to China?
The countries that Indians are now flocking to either have many high-income job opportunities, such as the United States, where high-tech industries often earn hundreds of thousands of dollars; or have good welfare, such as Canada and New Zealand, where Indians go to have a bunch of children, free education, free medical care, and childcare subsidies such as milk money.
These, the netizens who are in the limelight, ask themselves: do we have them?
Speaking of job opportunities, it is not easy for even Chinese college students to find jobs nowadays. Why can Indians who can’t speak a word of Chinese find jobs?
First-tier cities in China may have more job opportunities. But many college students from other places complain about the high rent and high living expenses in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. How can Indians, whose lives will only be more inconvenient, pay for the rent in China’s first-tier cities?
Let’s talk about welfare. In the past two years, the classic complaint of many countries about Indians is “taking advantage everywhere.” Some Indians even use applying for asylum as a shortcut to get an identity.
If Indian college students really come to China in droves as Chinese netizens “expect,” what welfare can they “take advantage” of? Can they, as in other countries, have a bunch of babies in China and then rely on welfare to support themselves?
China’s workplace is competitive, and education is even more competitive. Why would Indians who are “taking advantage” in other countries put themselves into a “hard mode”?
To put it bluntly, the advantages of Indians dominating Europe and the United States are “good English, good science and engineering, can give birth to babies, and can endure hardship.” None of these work in China: English is useless in China, the number of Chinese science and engineering graduates is the highest in the world, China’s fertility environment is extremely average, and Chinese people can also endure hardship.
Some people say that Indian media has indeed been hyping the K-visa recently, doesn’t this mean they want to come to China?
In my opinion, this is more like “hype” by the Indian media. Recently, Europe and the United States are tightening immigration restrictions. Indian media’s hype of the “K-visa” is nothing more than a show for Europe and the United States: if there is no place to stay, there will be a place to stay.
But both the Indian media and the Chinese social media have selectively failed to mention a basic fact: China is not an immigration country, and even if it relaxes some work or entry regulations, the various thresholds are still higher than those countries that are tightening.
Just to say one thing, the work visas in the United States and Canada not only come with various benefits, but can also lead to getting an identity. Can China do that?
Chinese netizens, don’t follow the Indian media to make a fuss. They are pretending to be confused, and we are really confused.
03
Don’t Chinese netizens know what our own national conditions and workplaces are like?
Chinese netizens like to complain about 996. Although India is poorer than China, the labor law will only be stricter than ours. If they disagree, they will go on strike. Do you think their technical talents can tolerate 996?
Let’s talk about the “foreign low-end labor force entering China” that netizens fear most, which is even more unreliable. The blue-collar income in Europe and the United States is good, and some blue-collar jobs like driving trucks have incomes that far exceed ordinary white-collar workers. The “low-end Indian labor force” in the eyes of Chinese netizens is like a fish in water in Europe and the United States.
The income of some white-collar jobs in China is indeed good, but how much do blue-collar workers get and how many hours do they work? Is this really attractive to the “foreign low-end labor force”?
Some netizens, even though their jobs are very hard and their income is not high, and they complain about all kinds of things on weekdays, but when it comes to the “K-visa,” it seems that their job has become the envy of the global masses. Is this a split personality?
You’d better not follow those social media “big V” to make a fuss. Your fear is their traffic.
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