The View | No need for investors to panic, Hong Kong will bounce back, as it always has

Unprecedented protest marches. Violent vandalism of public property. Anger in the streets. Legal interpretations changing long-held precedents. Is this the end of Hong Kong as we know it?

It is not uncommon for discontent to descend into protest vandalism in elegant cities such as Paris and London. When frustrated young people, or working-class high-visibility jacket wearers get emotional in a crowd, we often see the red mist descend onto otherwise decent people who become thugs for the night. Welcome to Saturday night after a big local football derby.

While there are no excuses for scaring people with bricks and poles – including, apparently, our highly-trained police – we should remember that this kind of thing happens elsewhere. It is not something that we are used to in non-confrontational Hong Kong. When wide public discontent like this does begin to develop, it is normal for investors to reconsider the risks of their investments.

I wrote after the first million-person march that funds might move out of Hong Kong to other jurisdictions such as Singapore and it is now widely reported that clients are asking their bankers about other jurisdictional options: “My great-grandfather lost everything to the Communists. Should I not learn from that?”