Charles Li, CEO of the HKEx, recently posted a remarkably feverish piece of prose on his blog, in which he recounts a dream he had in which dozens of voices tried to resolve the inherent conflict of interest caused by the HKEx being both a regulatory body and a profit-making business.
It was pretty surreal. But what if Li had another dream—this time, a dream of how to fix the whole city of Hong Kong? It might go a little something like this:
The other night, I had a vivid dream, in which a hundred voices came together in the sub-conscious of me, Charles Li. They came to argue over how to fix all of Hong Kong’s problems. I am nothing if not a gracious host, so I heard them all out.
First there was Mr. Mainland Integration, who bellowed “Hong Kong needs closer ties to the Pearl River Delta!” He was eating a dried seahorse. “No way!” Mr. Parochial Protester bellowed right back. “We don’t want mainland tourists pushing out all of the grassroots Hongkongers!”
That’s when Ms. 2017 Direct Elections chimed in, carrying a pot full of of democratea from my Dali-esque dream-kitchen. “We will fix all of our problems once the mainland accepts our version of democracy with Chinese characteristics. There’s no room for compromise here.” Mr. Requesting-Practical-and-Accountable-Governance rolled his eyes and went back to reading the FT from my dream-wing-back-armchair. He was not going to get his point across today.
So I said, “Look guys! We all have different points of view, but we all love Hong Kong. Plus, we all also have access to my, Charle Li’s, subsconscious. So let’s hash it out. Wait, Donkey Kong Jr.! Are you smashing the Bank of China building? You’ve got the wrong dream!”