Haven't watched it yet, but there's also a new documentary called "Hilleman" who was a leading American microbiologist who and developed over 40 vaccines, estimated to save 8 million lives each year. There's a biography as well.  He grew up in poverty on a farm in Montana, one of 8 children  and apparently had an "interesting" personality:  "Hilleman was a forceful man who was at the same time modest in his claims. None of his vaccines or discoveries are named after him. He ran his laboratory like a military unit, and he was the one in command. For a time, he kept a row of "shrunken heads" (actually fakes made by one of his children) in his office as trophies that represented each of his fired employees. He used profanity and tirades freely to drive his arguments home, and once, famously, refused to attend a mandatory "charm school" course intended to make Merck middle managers more civil. His subordinates were fiercely loyal to him." [source: wikipedia].

Working on human rights were just an example, because of the comparison you raised,  it could also be CSET type work.

That was precisely my point actually—just like Hirsi Ali might be well-placed to advocate for women's rights within Islam, people from Hong Kong might be well placed to highlight e.g. human rights issues in China. 

~140,000 people from Hong Kong might move to the UK this year (~322k in total over the next 5 years [source]).  

Are they particularly well placed to work on Sino-Western relations? (Because they're better at bridging cultural (and linguistic) gap and are likely highly determined). Should we prioritize helping them somehow?

Could there be a market inefficiency because financial speculation with agricultural commodities is perceived to be bad?

See for instance:

https://jai.pm-research.com/content/18/3/84/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2405851317300405

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405851316300162 

I agree that LAAUNCH seems quite high upside because they do research which I feel is often more neglected and can be quite high impact (e.g. they conduct "A comprehensive, national assessment of attitudes and stereotypes towards Asian Americans in the US – one of the few such studies in the last 20 years").

JPAL had some links to some orgs here:

Asian Americans Advancing Justice--Atlanta   
stopAAPIhate.org
hateisavirus.org
laaunch.org 

Edit: I also found Asian Americans Advancing Justice - this seems to be one of the biggest civil rights charities focusing on low income Asian Americans. They seem to have a good track record.  One can donate without paying any fees via PayPal Giving Fund here. 

Might also be worth to ask @chloecockburn who had some BLM recommendations.