We advertise ourselves as the gateway to China. We promote our excellent ties and unrivalled knowledge of the motherland. But when you look into the system, this is not the case - and you don't have to look very far.
The regulatory system of our equity market, where mainland players have the deepest involvement, is already very telling. Until this month, mainlanders rarely sat on any of the policymaking or advisory committees of the Securities and Futures Commission or the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Locally listed firms and brokers, as well as American and European financial intermediaries, have dominated the committees for decades, wielding significant influence in a system ruled more by consensus than voting.
This is despite the fact that mainland-related companies account for 51 per cent and 65 per cent of our market capitalisation and turnover, respectively, compared with a meagre 4.78 per cent and 11 per cent in 1993, and that half of our blue chips are mainland-related companies.
We all know these numbers are going to keep growing, but it is only in the past two weeks that Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing has appointed two mainlanders to its listing committee, while the government has appointed another two to the advisory committee of the SFC (see tables).
They include the Hong Kong chief of Haitong Securities, one of the mainland's top brokerage houses; a Lenovo Group vice-chairman who was named one of the most influential women in China; a managing director of China International Capital Corp, one of the country's largest investment banks; and the president of the influential China Merchants Group.
Unlike previous mainland-related appointees, people who were mainly Hong Kong professionals working for a mainland firm or brokerage house, these four are all mainland-groomed. It is impossible to understand the importance of this baby step without knowing the political background, which is better told by a story.