completely off-the-wall question

[kaigou]

(No, this has nothing to do with any plans for world domination. JUST ASKIN', really.)

What happens if more than 50% of your country's tangible property -- land -- is purchased/owned/occupied by nationals of another country? I mean, is there any scenario in which you could visualize or rationalize or imagine buying out a country? Or maybe just causing significant political shifts (assuming it's a multi-party and/or non-authoritarian regime)? Or... what happens when refugees from another country completely overwhelm the existing population (numbers-wise)? Could you end up with such chaos that the country ends up in a state of quasi-claimant by the nationals of a second country?

Feel free to reference books, movies, other fiction that's addressed such ideas, or your own experience and/or theories, academic or just fantastical, or real-world political, economic, financial, etc.

[Consider it purely curiosity on my part, but probably a curiosity that's buttressed by my own culture's assumptions that a nation is made up of its people & its land, which is where the foregone conclusion resides that a massive paradigm shift of people & ownership would have to, therefore, affect the nation as a whole.]

Comments

[mishalak]

"All power comes from the barrel of a gun."

What happens if nationals of Country A purchase 51% of Country B? Not a lot unless Country B just completely fails at the whole national defense thing. If the owners from Country A are absentee landlords then it would be a simple matter for Country B to expropriate the land and unless Country A is willing to go to war that is the end of the matter if done according to laws and rules of Country B. Sure, there could be trade sanctions and whatnot, but unless Country A is incredibly dominant in Country B's trade that will not work. It is not as if the rest of the world would jump in to help Country A.

Likewise with refugees and migrants. Unless they are given citizenship they do not get to vote and most countries, unlike the United States, do not automatically give citizenship by birth within the nation's boarders. What it would come down to is if the refugees or immigrants can force the issue by moral force or martial force. If the refugees are unarmed what is to stop Country B from returning them to Country A?

If, to use the perilous real world example, what if the United States of America were willing to spend the money and take the economic hit that finding and deporting all illegal immigrants were to entail, what would happen? There would, due to the lapse of time, be a lot of uncomfortable edge cases, but would any of the other countries stop the United States from doing so or even contest the legality of the action? On the other hand what if the United States were to do nothing and, even, to throw open the gates to everyone from Mexico and given them the vote, what then? Would the migrants actually try to reunite with Mexico as in the paranoid fantasies of the nativists or would it be a whole lot messier and more complicated? I suspect that a great many of the people willing to go would have a personal agenda different than what the leaders of any movement would hope.

My favorite real world example of an attempt is the "Free State Project". Libertarians pledging to move to one state to give themselves more influence over politics and to take over. So far it has failed to find enough people willing to actually migrate for libertarianism. I doubt it will actually come about due to politics not being a primary motivator for the vast majority of people (see also liberals moving to Canada due to conservatism of the US). The only way it could happen would be with subsidies on the part of some government to move people and then I suspect Country B would take action to stop the move or a mass migration due to economic issues.

[kaigou]

Politics are often a reason to talk big, but from what I can tell, people don't walk them unless either a) they're in a position that's much much worse politically and/or b) there's an additional emotional context like religion or family or culture. I mean, libertarians moving to NH from anywhere else in the states may be looking at potential improvement (ideal-wise) but for the most part, they're not gaining any major rights they don't already have, as a citizen living elsewhere. But if, say, we were talking the gulag or the ghetto or some other significant marginalization where you have no privileges at all (and may even be in danger in re life & limb), then a move to a place that re-enfranchises you would be obviously attractive. Double that if you're moving with a whole host of family, friends, fellow religious-types, etc.

Instead of a situation like the US exporting people, I was thinking more of mass exoduses -- like when PRC was getting ready to take back HK from the British. I know so many people who left Hong Kong and came to the US & Canada, rather than stick around for the PRC's arrival. I'm told Vancouver's Cantonese population shot up by a huge percentage, relatively. I wouldn't be surprised if others bore out my own understanding, which is that it only takes a handful of people to say, "my uncle lives there" or "my sister moved there" and then it's "our neighbors have family there" and "I know some people who know some people who say that's a good place" and even strangers may catch word and decide to migrate in that direction as well. At least then you'd feel like you were moving someplace new but with a kind of buffer of fellow-newcomers who know where you'd come from, eh?

Citizenship and ownership is another situation, but mass exodus and/or refugees could swarm a neighboring country in times of famine or war or whatnot, and most developed countries wouldn't bar the gates, just for humanitarian reasons. (Not saying they wouldn't put the refugees in limited-access camps, but still, that's more in the door than people were before.)

At least that scenario gets people into the country, and from there, it's connections -- how many others (close or distantly known) had settled previously, who might lend a hand or do the sponsorship thing. Even countries where the ownership is strictly limited (like Thailand, frex) have allowances for non-Thai who marry Thai citizens, or who are adopted into Thai families. So there are other ways to get a foothold, as well.