The proponents of a third runway at Heathrow (ie those who stand to benefit commercially from it) argue that there are not enough Chinese visitors coming, due to the lack of direct flights between Chinese cities and Heathrow. Is it credible to think that Chinese visitors are put off by the thought of going to Gatwick or Stansted? A friend of mine who does regular business in China says that the real reason is that Chinese visitors need a visa for the UK and, if they want to visit more than one European country, a separate visa for all member states within Shengen. The visa costs £600, not an inconsiderable sum for some Chinese visitors, but more importantly, the visa takes six weeks to obtain, and the applicant has to enclose his or her Chinese ID card. So these applicants are without ID for six weeks – not a pleasant thought in China when people can be stopped at any time by the police demanding their ID, with sometimes unpleasant results if the ID is not shown.
So, if the UK wants more Chinese visitors to catch up the number visiting France, for example, don’t blame airport capacity or the French, but make visas for visitors from China easier, quicker and cheaper to obtain or, best of all, join Shengen so that one visa does for the whole of the Shengen area.
China is already being worldwide recognised even by the USA as the forthcoming Leader of the World.
So apart from welcoming Chinese visitors,
we should quickly grant China
‘most-favoured-immigration-nation’;
Immediately, and without burying our heads in the sand and limping along wasting further precious longterm survival time.
And all of us in the UK, should now set about carefully showing these new voluntary Chinese immigrants
the real, longterm-sustainworthy, and cost-effective institutions, infrastructures, environments, and peoples of this Nation and Country,
and be doing so cooperatively lest we suddenly find ourselves having to learn Mandarin or Cantonese or both,
and having to be ‘taken-over and dominated’ by China
instead of early becoming one of their new–world-empire’s ‘favoured partners’.
Better that we as fast as possible clean-up both the worldwide English Language while we still have some legitimate control over it,
and ourselves advance our participatory democracy skills and infrastructures,
exemplarily; including majorly advancing in Governance-Quality,
and thereto in parliamentary electronic-networks,
and peacefully-revolutionarily in implementing peoples’-governance-deliberation-channels.
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But we should not necessarily barge ahead, trying to “oil-burn” our way into a sustainworthy future place in the World, by “ballooning” Heathrow out of all future-reality proportions.
Can I please point out that the European open border agreement is the Schengen agreement (it’s in Luxembourg), not the Shengen agreement?
Yes, and interesting isn’t it that the UK has not been worried at all about immigration, so Shengen hasn’t upset them one iota. No, what frightens this lot to the core is, the possibility of an exodus of European British citizens fleeing en masse to what they see as more civilised domains which endlessly entices them from this pit they are steeped in.
Lets start here. Do you see piles of trash thrown all over the place? When you arrive at Heathrow you feel as if you have arrived at the tip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FF9a0PUAws&feature=relmfu
And here we see, Paris to Marseille, in two hours with car if you don’t want to drive. Again, do we see dirt, filth, ugly people making spitting sounds or threats? I don’t think so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W2aDMCOXhY&feature=related
Even, Libon, clean no paper, no human detritus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBZkR9TFFqk&feature=related
Nothing to do with planes, it’s all to do with ‘health and safety.’ LOL!
We are a third world country and we have no shame. When you arrive in London. Filth, dirt, noise, mayhem. Would you spend your hard earned money going to a country like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fbswZnf_e4&feature=related