How US-China decoupling makes Hong Kong a prime go-between to ease economic rifts with West
- Special administration region seen uniquely positioned to serve as dialogue nexus that could help prevent economic fragmentation from devolving into bigger conflict
- City’s financial secretary warns that further fragmentation with West could hinder cross-border capital flows and jeopardise international financing options
Hong Kong can play an important role in helping abate the trend toward China-US decoupling that poses growing risks to the global economy, officials and analysts said at a recent conference in the city for business executives.
By offering itself as a dialogue nexus, Hong Kong could stop China’s economic fragmentation with the West from leading to a bigger conflict, according to conference panellist Antony Leung, an independent non-executive director of China Construction Bank.
Leung, who is also chairman of the Hong Kong-based Nan Fung property development group, foresees a world fractured by a Western alliance and another bloc led by China.
“Hong Kong sits right in the middle – we have … an emerging economy, and we [trade] with the rest of the world, so clearly we feel the winds, but hopefully Hong Kong can play the role of bridging the two systems. Maybe have a dialogue through Hong Kong,” Leung suggested, adding that offshore traders and investors still care about the China market.
“Hopefully Hong Kong can [help explain] to the world what [China’s] emergence is like. And secondly, that we are no threat to the rest of the world.”