LettersHong Kong needs Carrie Lam to take on the real enemies of the people – the hoarders of wealth

What made Hong Kong rich is also what caused its wide wealth gap. The key to lasting peace in the city is addressing social inequality and its causes

This is the time to prove, to the rest of China and world, that Hongkongers can still thrive and adapt

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Chief Executive Carrie Lam announces the suspension of the extradition bill at a press conference at the government headquarters in Tamar, Admiralty on June 15. On September 4, Lam announced that the government would formally withdraw the bill. She must now focus on the income inequality that fuelled the social unrest. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Published: 7:30am, 7 Sep 2019Updated: 7:30am, 7 Sep 2019

Hong Kong’s economy took flight mainly on the wings of trade, banking and real estate. In turn, the stakeholders in these industries rake in a much larger proportion of earnings than other Hongkongers. That this divide is worsening is evident, if you compare the rise in the price of flats with that in income levels.

More anecdotally, the price of a pineapple bun or Cafe de Coral meal set has risen 200 per cent over 20 years but the salaries of many white- and blue-collar workers and even that of professionals, such as some doctors, have not kept pace.

Radicals might see undercutting Hong Kong’s gross domestic product as an obvious way to bring about change. The logic goes that the upper echelons will suffer more, as their assets will evaporate faster, and they will lose much more in both nominal and proportional terms.

As straightforward a solution as this seems, no one has been able to realise this idea.

A number of shops in Causeway Bay are closed or have reported poor business, as protests in Hong Kong near the three-month mark. Photo: Nora Tam

Human nature dictates that we all prioritise immediate impact over long-term benefit, put self above society, and ego over the limits imposed on it. The majority of the least well-off are afraid that their already dismal incomes will be further reduced. The rich and powerful are wily enough to threaten lay-offs. The less well-off are taken in by the mirage of hope, thoroughly convinced that higher nominal income leads to a better quality of life, regardless of inflation and the disproportionate rise in the cost of living.