WHEN PROMINENT legislator James Tien Pei-chun was reported to have suggested the Hong Kong dollar's peg to its United States counterpart might have to be reconsidered, just as the SAR was heading into its last recession during the Asian financial crisis, interest rates rocketed as the local currency almost immediately came under sustained attack.
The then Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce chairman faced a barrage of criticism for appearing to voice what, back in October 1997, were still regarded as almost subversive sentiments. A chastened Mr Tien had to insist he'd been misinterpreted, blaming this newspaper for how it reported his remarks.
So it is a mark of how much the climate of opinion has changed on the peg since then how no one batted an eyelid when, just as Hong Kong is heading into a second recession, Mr Tien unequivocally told the Post last week that 'Mr Tung should consider scrapping the peg during his second term, or else he is not doing a good job'.
This time there were no complaints of being misinterpreted. Nor was there any need for them. After all, four years ago Mr Tien was almost a lone voice in calling into question the previously sacrosanct peg. But today the now Liberal Party chairman is just one of a growing number who are openly wondering whether a link that dates back to 1983, when Hong Kong's return to China had not yet even been agreed, has outlived its usefulness.
It is a view which can be heard right across the political spectrum, with The Frontier's convenor Emily Lau Wai-hing - who rarely agrees with Mr Tien on anything else - recently echoing business complaints that the peg makes Hong Kong uncompetitively expensive, deterring both foreign investors and local start-ups.
Even some of those who believe the peg should remain say it should be changed to 10 or 12 to the US dollar, from the present rate of 7.8, in what would be a controlled devaluation. That is another idea which was previously unthinkable: with former financial secretary Donald Tsang Yam-kuen once famously arguing that 'once you loosen a currency, it is gone forever, like virginity'.