Mainlanders furious at HK newspaper ad

The Hong Kong-based Apple Daily carried a controversial full page advertisement Wednesday demanding the local government stop pregnant women from the mainland from entering the special administrative region (SAR) to give birth, sparking a fierce online debate.

The incident came amid several disputes between people in the two areas, which reflected growing mainland phobia in the SAR and continuous debate on national identity.

The ad features a huge locust over Hong Kong's skyline with a headline saying, "Do you want Hong Kong to pay $1,000,000 every 18 minutes to raise babies whose parents are not permanent residents here?"

"Hongkongers have had enough!" the ad claimed, adding that people there have tolerated mainlanders' craze for "safe baby formula, self-guided tours and advanced educational resources," among other things.

"Please respect local culture when you come to Hong Kong," it said, demanding the local government amend laws to block mainland pregnant women from flooding in.

Online group Golden Forum funded the page-11 ad with donations from users of its Internet chat service.

The accusations sparked a heated debate after the ad was circulated by microbloggers in the mainland. One of the entries on Sina Weibo has been reposted around 97,000 times and received over 30,000 comments by press time.

Some Web users said that the words in the ad were much too strong considering the assistance and support that the mainland provides to Hong Kong.

"The resentment carried by the ad is understandable as the influx of mainland pregnant women does take up local medical resources. However, depicting your fellow countrymen as locusts is simply wrong. It does not represent the majority of Hongkongers," Yu Wai-kam, a professor of social work with the Hong Kong Baptist University, told the Global Times.

Many mothers-to-be from the mainland have chosen to give birth in the SAR in recent years so that their children can get permanent residency there.

These children can enjoy the same welfare and education benefits as their local counterparts, as well as medical care and a better chance of being enrolled by top mainland universities.

Data collected by the Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong showed that in 2010, out of the 88,500 newborns in the region, more than 45 percent, or 40,000, were children of mainland mothers.

To cope with this problem, the Hong Kong Hospital Authority announced in April that public hospitals in the region would not receive reservations from mainland mothers-to-be until the end of 2011.

Yu noted that the main problem lies in the local government's population policy.