Hongkongers feel betrayed by the system. Here are eight ways for the city to find hope again

Hong Kong is not alone in facing problems, beginning with widening inequality and middle-class stagnation. In times of distress, we must seek ways to secure our future as a critically important city

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People hold up LED-lit letters spelling “Free HK” on Lion Rock in Hong Kong on September 13. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:15am, 16 Sep 2019Updated: 9:15am, 16 Sep 2019

It is helpful, and in a perverse way comforting, to be reminded that the challenges we are wrestling with in Hong Kong are not ours alone, but are being felt worldwide. Whether that helps us discover ways to restore calm and a unity of purpose across the community is another matter.

So it gave me pause when I raked through old articles and rediscovered a piece from April by Martin Wolf for the Financial Times. He was wringing his hands over all the things that have gone pear-shaped in the recent past, especially since the global financial crash of 2008: the surge in demagoguery and the terrible mess democracies around the world seem to be in.

Noting that stability is rooted in widely shared prosperity, he was anxious in particular about widening inequalities, and a sense of stress and hopeless stagnancy among many in the middle class.

In a quest to discover how hope might be restored, he identified 10 things that mattered – and they matter as much to Hong Kong as to the rest of the world. I will cut his list to eight, which of course in Asia is much luckier.

First, leadership matters. As Wolf argued: “Democratic politics … is about persuading people.” Great leaders are always great storytellers. Where are Hong Kong’s storytellers – the people with a vision for our future as a critically important part of China; the people with a clear sense of what has made Hong Kong successful and what we need to persuade China to emulate if it is to recover its appropriate place in the global economy?

Sadly, so far, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Yuet-ngor has failed this test. If China under the “one country, two systems” framework is to capitalise on the strengths Hong Kong brings, then this must urgently change. Lam must either step aside, or demonstrate her vision for Hong Kong’s role in China’s future development.