WI: Spain with a larger Asian population

What would be the butterflies of larger number of Asians in Spain? Specifically could Spain at least after the 21st century have a minimum of of a million Asians with the Filipinos being the majority.

Could Spain after the Fall of Franco loosen its immigration policies to Asians with a large number coming from the Philippines and China?
 
Spain already has largely open borders to Filipinos, as well as citizens of other former Spanish colonies, mainly in Spanish America. The number of Filipinos in Spain was never large - English is more widespread in the Philippines than Spanish, and the US is a bigger and richer country than Spain. The top two Asian countries of origin in Spain are China and Pakistan.

Now, immigration levels exploded in the 2000s. Spain went from 900,000 foreigners in 2000 to 5.7 million in 2011 (and then back down to 4.7 million in 2014, because of the weak economy). At the peak, Spain had about 400,000 Asians. If you want to push it above a million, figure out a way to avoid the recession, or keep it very mild, so that the Chinese and Pakistanis would keep coming, rather than going back to China and Pakistan.
 
I always wonder why when Americans think "Asian", they automatically think Chinese and when the British think "Asian", they automatically think "Indian".

Leaving that aside, you would need a historical reason for the immigration if it is large-scale, I suspect it would take the Spanish East Indies being held well into the twentieth century, followed by a post-colonial movement of people as in Britain or France. To do this though, you would have to avoid Franco.

It also depends on the type of people coming as to how it would affect Spanish politics. The answer is far more difficult than the question implies.
 
Spain already has largely open borders to Filipinos, as well as citizens of other former Spanish colonies, mainly in Spanish America. The number of Filipinos in Spain was never large - English is more widespread in the Philippines than Spanish, and the US is a bigger and richer country than Spain. The top two Asian countries of origin in Spain are China and Pakistan.

There were already more than 100 thousand Filipinos in Spain which most of them, have already acquired Spanish citizenship unlike Chinese and thus, already counted as Spaniards not as Filipinos in Spanish census. Spain has the third largest Filipino community in Europe after Italy and the United Kingdom and actually, a much cheaper destination for us than the latter two and share common Hispanic culture, though we don't speak Spanish anymore. Filipino presence are much pronounced in Spanish society than its American counterparts as one of the greatest players of FC Barcelona in early 20th century, Paulino Alcantara, was a Spanish Filipino from Iloilo and Enrique Iglesias come from aristocratic Filipino-Spanish Perez de Tagle family through his mother, Isabel Preysler.

Now, immigration levels exploded in the 2000s. Spain went from 900,000 foreigners in 2000 to 5.7 million in 2011 (and then back down to 4.7 million in 2014, because of the weak economy). At the peak, Spain had about 400,000 Asians. If you want to push it above a million, figure out a way to avoid the recession, or keep it very mild, so that the Chinese and Pakistanis would keep coming, rather than going back to China and Pakistan.

If the European Union allows free flow of labor or people from ASEAN countries, millions of professional Filipinos currently working or unemployed in the Philippines would surely go to Spain and given the fact that our educational system before the implementation of the 12-year basic education curriculum, most of us would surely become menial workers not only in Spain but also in the entire EU.

Allowing free flow of labor or people might encourage millions of unemployed Spaniards, Italians, and Greeks; British and French pensioners; and German and Scandinavian entrepreneurs to come to the Philippines in reverse and would precipitate the restoration of Spanish language as one of our official language along with English and would hasten the Westernization of my country, ironically by Europeans not Americans.
 
What would be the butterflies of larger number of Asians in Spain? Specifically could Spain at least after the 21st century have a minimum of of a million Asians with the Filipinos being the majority.

Could Spain after the Fall of Franco loosen its immigration policies to Asians with a large number coming from the Philippines and China?

Which Asians? Chinese, Filipinos, Thais, Malays, Indians, Pakistanis, Iranians, Turks, Arabs?
 
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