At a closed-door meeting with a group of businesspeople in late August, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor admitted that the city’s Information Services Department had requested proposals to “relaunch the Hong Kong brand” from eight global public relations companies. To date, it has received none. In a press briefing on September 17, Lam indicated that “the time will come for us to launch a major campaign to restore some of the damage done to Hong Kong’s reputation”. Yes, but a PR campaign is the last thing Lam should be worrying about now. Why did the invited global PR firms turn down this potentially lucrative assignment? In fact, four immediately declined because, in Lam’s own words , it “would be a detriment to their reputation to support the Hong Kong [Special Administrative Region] government now”. It is understandable that no PR firm of international repute would want to be seen as aiding and abetting a government increasingly seen, outside China, as utterly out of touch with its people’s needs and a “white glove” for the Chinese government. I also think that the risk of being on the wrong side of a potential Tiananmen-style crackdown could be unbearable. In addition, representing the Hong Kong government might well require registration under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act. With the international news beaming, 24 hours a day, brutal images of the escalating confrontations between the protesters and the police, there is no question that at stake is “Hong Kong’s positioning as a global business and financial hub with a stable environment underpinned by the rule of law”, as the government brief seeking a campaign strategy described it. Are there any bright spots for Hong Kong’s real estate market? The 75-page document outlines the key objectives of the contemplated PR campaign: addressing negative perceptions in key markets overseas to maintain confidence in Hong Kong, underscoring Hong Kong’s differentiating factors and trumpeting the success of “one country, two systems”. But the underlying issue about “Brand Hong Kong” is, rightly or wrongly, the rapidly deteriorating “Brand China”. The backdrop of the current situation is: Brand China has systematically come under attack in the wake of the US-led anti-China campaign. The anger over the aborted Hong Kong extradition bill, by reinforcing the fear of China’s encroachment into the SAR’s independent judicial system and civil liberties, took down Brand Hong Kong along with Brand China. New York-based PR guru Richard Edelman, publisher of the “Edelman Trust Barometer” survey, indicated in April that widely reported security concerns about Huawei were damaging the overall perception of the brands from China. Comparing data collected this March with that gathered mid-October and mid-November 2018 shows a deterioration of trust in “Brand China” since the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, in Canada on December 1, 2018. Trust in Brand China declined 5-6 points in just that period of time because of the Huawei issue. Since the 2008 Olympics, the Chinese government has made a conscious effort to project its national image as an emerging global power. At the same time, Chinese companies have increasingly won recognition through studies of national branding. This positive trajectory, however, has been undermined in recent years. The continuing trade dispute with the US, along with the narrative about China as a “threat” or “enemy”, has certainly contributed to this reversal. A Pew Institute survey released on August 13 shows that 60 per cent of Americans have an unfavourable opinion of China, up from 47 per cent in 2018. Trump’s trade fight with China is just a damaging sideshow Nevertheless, reports of increasing clampdowns on civil liberties and political dissent in China and its aggressive posture in international affairs have also accelerated this decline. Consequently, corporations in sensitive industries are often perceived in the West as an extension of the state apparatus. In a startling revelation, during that leaked conversation in August, Lam admitted to the business community the “huge degree of fear and anxiety among people of Hong Kong vis-à-vis the mainland of China, which we were not sensitive enough to feel and grasp”. Lam, like the Chinese government, is also of the view that such fear and anxiety have been “exaggerated and misrepresented through very effective propaganda”. It is no wonder, then, that Lam and her government are eager to shape international opinion with their own competing counternarratives. It’s true that the protesters have used crowdfunding to get their stories out via ads in newspapers around the world. But to counter those, Lam needs more than a smart communication strategy. She should pay heed to the opposite effect created by Chinese state media, which bought ads on Twitter and Facebook framing the protesters as violent, and churned out op-eds blaming foreign “black hands ” for instigating the protests. Rather than being seen as utterly clueless about its own people’s angst and aspirations, Lam’s government should use its budget to improve the welfare of the people and proactively work on solutions to outstanding concerns. Hong Kong’s repute is not yet beyond repair. It’s too early for the government to undertake an image makeover. The challenges faced by Hong Kong are not just a matter of cosmetics. No amount of PR will be enough to overcome the perception of a society overtaken by civil discontent. The Hong Kong government was widely criticised as arrogant and out of touch. Humility and compassion for its own people cost nothing, but will yield more concrete results than a plastered PR offensive. Chiu-Ti Jansen, with advanced degrees from Yale and Columbia, is the founder of multimedia platform China Happenings and a former corporate partner of international law firm Sidley Austin