Tonga’s royal jester scam

Swimming with sharks Chapter 4.2

Freehold land is nearly non-existent; royals and nobles own it all. 

Taufa’ahau justified Tonga’s land laws by saying Maori had lost their land in New Zealand and Australians were losing land to Japanese.

‘The same thing could happen in Tonga, and if we want Tonga to be like that, for the town land to be taken over by the Chinese, palagis and foreigners then we should allow land to be bought and it would take about 10 years for it to happen.’

He got the idea of making money off Hong Kong Chinese, who were anxious at what communist Beijing might do to the colony ahead of the hand-back of the British colony to China in 1997. He came up with the Tongan Protected Persons passport for Chinese. It struck a problem when no other country would recognise a passport without any citizenship. Quietly he sold citizenship while publicly denying it was going on.

Tongans, Australian and New Zealand security sources were worried, as the king was selling citizenship to some odd Middle Eastern characters. 

‘Akau’ola was the point man. ‘We have never given one to a gangster, a criminal or to a drug offender. Every passport goes to a good land reputable character.’

In the Assembly, Pohiva produced a receipt for a Chinese family who had paid for citizenship. A Hong Kong magazine, Emigrant, spilled the secret by saying that in return for the leasing of plots of land for 20 years, foreigners would be given a ‘right of abode’ and a passport.