My Take | Hong Kong’s future lies in the north
- City faces systemic and internal decline; its fortunes cannot revive without full integration with the rest of the country
Does Hong Kong have a future? Of course, it does – after 2047. But in the next 27 years, it will most likely hit a nadir, both in terms of economic development, technological innovation and social integration with the rest of the country.
We have rejected all of them in favour of a wholly (self-) destructive politics.
People of sense and goodwill just have to wing it over the next three decades and hope the city won’t be left so far in the dust by southern China and the turbo economy of the Greater Bay Area.
“One country, two systems” helped maintain confidence during the transition period of the 1997 handover. But it is now a great hindrance to integration with the rest of the country.
It has failed to build cross-border trust; instead, we are now almost in a state of war between people on the two sides, with large segments of the local population having decisively rejected Chinese rule. Who is to blame? We all are.