Irish Foreign Minister unaware his department is in talks with Hong Kong tycoon to 'build city in Ireland for HK half a million migrants'

Ben Haugh & Mark Tighe
The Times
Sun, 26 Jul 2020 10:59 UTC

Comment: Ireland's current population is 5 million, by the way...

"Oh look, there's 'nothing' here. Let's build a city and ship in half a million people!"

Simon Coveney, the foreign affairs minister, was unaware that Irish officials had preliminary discussions with a Hong Kong property tycoon about the possibility of putting a new city in one of six locations around Ireland.

Reacting to the publication yesterday of internal departmental records about the project by The Times, Ireland edition, a spokesman for the minister said the talks were at "officials level only" and never progressed to Coveney for input.

Records released under the Freedom of Information Act by the department show it has been in contact with Victoria Harbour Group (VHG), an international charter city investment company, since December about a plan to create a city that would be home to tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents.

A series of meetings have been held in Ireland and Hong Kong in recent months about sourcing a 500 sq km area of land for a new city. The locations discussed were between Drogheda and Dundalk in Co Louth; to the east of Galway city; an area just north of Limerick city; a plot outside Waterford city; a site to the east of Cork; and an area near Killarney and Tralee in Co Kerry.

Ivan Ko, a Hong Kong property tycoon who founded VHG, is searching the globe for potential sites for a new international charter city for Hong Kong residents ahead of 2047, when the 50-year guarantee of having a separate governance system from Beijing expires.

"We're looking at free and democratic countries interested in tapping into the talent and drive of the Hong Kong people," Ko said in a recent interview with City Journal. "We are currently in discussions with Ireland and two other countries."

The initial proposal Ko sent the Department of Foreign Affairs in January set out how "a freezing survey", setting out the boundaries of the new city, would be done in the first half of 2020. Public works on the scheme could have started by the end of this year following the execution of a city charter.

The proposals said the new city would be self-funded and provide its own police, but security services would be provided by Ireland at "a service fee" to residents. It was initially referred to as Sim City, after the computer game in which players design their own towns. The city's name has since changed to Nextpolis.

Tim Mawe, regional director in the Asia Pacific Unit of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and David Costello, consul-general of Ireland to Hong Kong, were involved in the talks with Ko.

On January 9, Ko emailed the department attaching a presentation explaining the project.

"I hope you can bring this up to your president, the honourable Michael Higgin [sic] and his colleagues," he said. Ko included a futuristic cityscape filled with green skyscrapers with the headline: "Nextpolis — a preliminary proposal on establishment of an international charter city in Ireland."

The presentation said: "To secure a piece of land of about [500] sq km in Ireland, by way of a long-term head lease, to develop and operate an autonomous international charter city, namely Nextpolis, at the cost of a group of international investors led by a general partner and the future Nextpolis city government."

It states the city would have an initial population of about 50,000 but would grow to 500,000 over 20 years, with at least 50% comprising people from Hong Kong. Nextpolis would have a "free reforming economic system" within Ireland; an independent relationship with the EU; control of its own borders; a low and simple taxation system; no foreign exchange control; and an emphasis on "ease of setting up and conducting businesses".

Ko and Mawe discussed the possible locations for the new city in a series of WhatsApp messages. On February 17, Mawe emailed Ko, appearing to pour cold water on the project which he described as "quite radical".

Mawe warned that the political opposition in Ireland to the project would be substantial.

"Frankly speaking, if you (or indeed anyone else) turns up in Ireland and starts by proposing Nextpolis, I fear that the response will not be positive," he wrote. "People in Ireland who fought long and hard to obtain freedom and have struggled through poverty to maintain that freedom are not inclined to sell part of our national territory to anyone".

The last meeting was held in Hong Kong on March 6 between Ko and Costello.

In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs said: "Following an initial approach in December 2019, [we] had limited contact with the individuals involved to provide helpful and realistic guidance about Ireland. Since providing this guidance no further action has been taken by the department in this matter."

Comment: This is indicative of the extent to which national govts have lost power/influence in recent times, particularly since the boom of Covid-19 was lowered on the world. The world has bifurcated into an international archipelago of 'sanctuary cities' which the elite classes treat as their own 'green', 'liberal' playgrounds, oases in a 'desert' of 'backward' masses of 'nationalists' who hold onto such antiquated notions as tradition, stability and family.

Voting is utterly redundant in this new reality; the internationalist cosmopolitan-urban classes just do as they see fit, and this attitude of theirs is succinctly articulated here by a consortium of investors planning to effectively create an 'autonomous zone' in the middle of someone else's country. It's imperialism on steroids, though of course they will paint it as 'the height of liberal freedom'...