Is Hong Kong dispensable to China? June 4 vigil is a test
- If candles keep lighting up Victoria Park on future June 4 nights, what better way to showcase the symbolic significance of ‘one country, two systems’?
- The special governing formula designed for the city by Deng Xiaoping covers many complexities, but it can be that simple sometimes
Where should you go with your money if you don’t want to stay in Hong Kong any more, now that the die has been cast?
This may be a tough question keeping some of the city’s tycoons awake at night, since Beijing’s move to impose a controversial national security law on Hong Kong is now a done deal.
Which place in China would be a suitable alternative to Hong Kong? The hi-tech hub of Shenzhen? Or Hainan, which is to be a free-trade port?
The question has actually been long mulled over by Beijing, but the answer boils down to the same consideration. Is it possible to create another Hong Kong on the mainland by giving it the same unique independent legal and judicial systems, free exchange of currency and free flow of capital? Apparently not.
Concern among the local and foreign business communities is understandable, but Beijing would have factored this in its calculations, including the most drastic response from the US to end Hong Kong’s decades-long special-trade status under the 1992 Hong Kong Policy Act.
Intriguingly, major local chambers of commerce and business heavyweights have come forward one by one to publicly express support for the national security law. The last to join the list are two major Hong Kong-based foreign banks with the right to issue banknotes in the city, HSBC and Standard Chartered, sparking anger back home in Britain for their show of support.
China-US ties: from ‘same bed, different dreams’ to a break-up over Hong Kong
The alarming scenes of mass business relocation and capital exodus, expected or assumed, are not happening, at least not yet. There may be a practical reason for that – other parts of the world are not much better alternatives for investment.
Beijing has argued that plugging the national security loophole in Hong Kong will be beneficial, as it will create a safer business environment. But critics, led by the US, claim the new law will cast aside the city’s status as a renowned financial and trade centre and erode its many freedoms.
At the end of the day, with China and the US locked in a dangerous new cold war, what matters more to Hong Kong’s future now is how the new law is to be implemented.
This year’s June 4 candlelight vigil became quite a telling indicator. It was an illegal rally under Covid-19 rules banning large gatherings, but many were peacefully defiant in exerting their right to mourn the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Police stepped aside and the vigil went ahead, with some shouting slogans of independence and calling for an end to one-party rule – something completely unthinkable in any other part of China.
Black and white simplification of Hong Kong-mainland relations will not help
Decades have passed since the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping expressed his wish in Shenzhen back in the 1980s “to build a few more Hong Kongs”, but so far, no place can lay claim to that title, regardless of how great its transformation.
More worrying is the vicious cycle of growing fear or even hatred among many Hongkongers towards the mainland versus Beijing’s increasing distrust of the city.
If candles keep lighting up Victoria Park and other parts of the city on future June 4 nights, what better way to showcase the symbolic significance of “one country, two systems”?
The special governing formula designed for the city by Deng covers far more complexities than just the June 4 vigil, but it can be that simple sometimes. And that should be one more good reason for investors to stay in Hong Kong, on top of its other strengths.
