Many Hongkongers hold the mainland and its people in contempt . Taking pride in their higher income and association with their former colonial master, they would rather be British than Chinese, even as many of the city's wealthier residents already hold foreign passports. As protests continue into a fourth month, with no end in sight, the question is: what should Beijing do? Probably nothing. With a deep sense of history, Chinese leaders play the long game and know not to be provoked. Beijing can patiently wait until the young protesters see that Hong Kong's future rests with the mainland and not the other way round. Beijing is committed to “one country, two systems” but Hong Kong, with a population of 7.4 million people, is just another second-tier Chinese city with diminishing stature. While it once served as the gateway for trade and investments into China, that is no longer the case. Outside investors now head straight to Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and even second- and third-tier cities such as Dalian, Suzhou or Zhuhai. Whereas in 1993, Hong Kong accounted for 27 per cent of China's GDP, today it represents only 2.7 per cent, falling behind its neighbour Shenzhen, a fishing village not so long ago. Hong Kong's economy depends to a large degree on property speculation and its role as a tax haven. Flats are tiny and real estate prices astronomical because 76 per cent of the territory's land remains undeveloped, and only 7 per cent is used for residential purposes. The city also serves as a money-laundering hub for corporate profits, the drug trade, human trafficking and corruption. According to a 2014 poll by PwC, formerly PricewaterhouseCoopers, Hong Kong had the highest reported rate of money laundering in Asia and higher than in many parts of the world. If protesters were to burn the city to the ground, Beijing could afford to leave it lying in ashes and rebuild it after 2047. And if anyone expects the protests in Hong Kong to embarrass Beijing or even spark a popular uprising on the mainland, they will be disappointed. Opinion polls by Western researchers consistently show a high level of satisfaction by the Chinese towards their government. Pew surveys available since 2002 have also regularly shown that Chinese report greater satisfaction in their country's direction than is the case for Americans. A 2013 Pew Centre survey of 39 countries, for example, revealed that the Chinese were happier with their country's direction than the other advanced, emerging and developing countries surveyed. Compare their 85 per cent satisfaction rate with the 57 per cent in Germany, 33 per cent in Japan, 24 per cent in South Korea and 31 per cent in the US. China’s reforms don’t contradict the communist revolution – they consolidate it In the trust barometer survey of 28 countries and regions, released in January 2017 by Edelman Global Public Relations, Chinese citizens showed the highest trust (76 per cent) in their government. A Gallup poll from October of that year showed only 21 per cent of Americans were satisfied with the direction of their country. Even a slowing economy due to the trade war with the US is unlikely to lead to unrest, or regime change. China was poor for a long time. Despite rising living standards, especially in the coastal provinces, most of the current generation of adults in their 30s and 40s still remember what it was like to only be able to afford meat once a month. Visitors to the country in the 1990s were confronted with toilet stalls without doors (even at Beijing Capital International Airport), streets teeming with bicycles and few buses or cars in sight. The per capita income in 1996 was about the same as that of India or Pakistan, at US$2,200, using purchasing power parity exchange rates. (Today, it stands at US$19,520 or a nine-fold increase). Then-premier Zhu Rongji 's reforms from 1998-2003 led to 35 per cent of the workforce, or about 40 million workers, being laid off. It was a shock to those accustomed to the “iron rice bowl” and one might have expected widespread unrest, even a revolution, but everyone took it in their stride and found alternative livelihoods as carpenters, tailors, cobblers, plumbers, electricians and small traders as the market opened up and new opportunities presented themselves. As state-owned enterprises were closed, private businesses and factories of all description sprang up seemingly out of nowhere. It was a time of great risks and rewards as cards were reshuffled (for a first-hand account, read Tim Clissold's Mr China: A Memoir ). The West should stop projecting its fears onto China What Western policymakers often fail to appreciate is the Chinese cultural character. The Chinese are a hardy people who have faced far worse than stock market turbulence. Anyone who visits China will not fail to notice the way the Chinese accept hardship as a normal part of life and that the ability to endure and overcome adversity is seen as a cardinal virtue. Hong Kong tycoon Robert Kuok calls them “the most amazing economic ants on Earth”. Neither the trade war nor Hong Kong protests will bring the down the government in Beijing any time soon. Michael Tai is author of China and her Neighbours: Asian Politics and Diplomacy from Ancient History to the Present