Opinion | Is Hong Kong reaching a tipping point in public anger? The government must tread carefully

Bernard Chan says from calls to build homes on golf course land, to the fuss over tunnel tolls and protests against raising the elderly welfare age limit and mainland shoppers, discontent is festering in Hong Kong, and the government needs to listen

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Residents march through To Kwa Wan on January 26 to protest against what they describe as a nuisance caused by unregulated numbers of tourists from the mainland. Photo: EPA

Published: 2:00pm, 31 Jan 2019Updated: 7:31pm, 31 Jan 2019

Uncertainty is normal. But the state of the world today feels stranger than usual. While the world economy doesn’t look that bad, there is widespread political instability. As the head of tech company Hewlett Packard said recently at the Davos gathering, “we have globalisation and nationalism happening at the same time.”

In the United States, the federal government was shut down for five weeks, from December to January. Hundreds of thousands of workers, some in critical security roles, went unpaid. US society is more divided than ever.

And all this over something that, on the face of it, would strike most outsiders as absurd: namely, President Donald Trump’s plan for a wall along the border with Mexico. And he has warned that another government shutdown might take place before long.

In Europe, the British parliament overwhelmingly struck down the government’s Brexit proposal. The deadline for Brexit is March 29, yet even at this late stage there is no consensus on how Britain will actually exit the EU.

The default will be a no-deal Brexit, which in theory could leave a major economy outside main international trade arrangements. This could do serious damage to businesses in Britain, Europe and beyond – though amazingly no one really knows.

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