And if HK is no longer an entrepôt and the gateway to China it faces the possibility of becoming a colonial backwater but one that is so overbuilt it ends up as an urban hellscape. Imagine this:
From China Law Blog:
Hong Kong’s Demise
This blog has not minced words when it comes to describing the grim situation in Hong Kong, which, as one of my former colleagues at the State Department puts it, “will get worse before it doesn’t get better.”
Signs of Hong Kong’s demise as an international business center are plentiful. The city is in recession. Hong Kong airlines are cutting flights and losing revenue. Hotel occupancy rates are down. Foreign companies and governments have evacuation plans in place. My alma mater, CUHK, has cancelled the remainder of the semester, affecting not just regular students, but the many exchange students it hosts, including those from my other alma mater. Other universities have done the same, even those that are not currently besieged.
Even if the city’s streets were to calm down—and that’s a highly unlikely if—it’s hard to see a meaningful bounce-back of the economy. Ever. The international business community is irreversibly spooked. Contrary to the 2014 Umbrella protests, which were largely contained to a few hotspots, the rage of 2019 has engulfed the entirety of the SAR’s territory, on full display for everyone to see, with everyone having been affected in one way or the other. As a result, that most visceral expat nightmare of being physically prevented from escaping has at times turned into reality.
In any case, Beijing has made clear that going back to business as usual isn’t its game plan. Rather, it wants to push through “national security” legislation, “improve” how the city’s leadership is chosen and patriotically “reeducate” Hongkongers. Hardly a roadmap for reducing tensions.
As the Hong Kong/China authorities continue to struggle with opposition to their plans, it will become increasingly difficult for foreign businesses to immunize themselves from the chaos around them. Some risks to consider:
Visa Restrictions. From Beijing’s perspective, expats are problematic. Their continued presence helps preserve Hong Kong’s uniqueness at least to some degree, with their use of English and embrace of liberal ideas. The life of relative privilege that many of them lead fuels resentment in a city already wracked with social inequality. Their presence would complicate more “robust” efforts at “pacification.” There is therefore all to gain and nothing to lose by making it harder for expats to obtain work visas, placing more restrictions on visa validity, and possibly closing the door on permanent residence (currently available after seven years in Hong Kong). Mind you, this is not my view, but it’s probably an accurate summation of the Chinese authorities’ feelings. Meanwhile, reducing the inflow of expats opens even more doors for Mainland Chinese staff, resulting in a win-win situation.
Legal Degradation. Hong Kong has a long history of inviting judges from the UK and other Commonwealth jurisdictions such as Canada to join its courts, and this practice continued even after the change of sovereignty. The presence of foreign judges has come under attack, mainly by pro-Beijing figures, and to be fair there is something paternalistic about it. I have no doubt that Hong Kong has enough legal talent to sufficiently staff its courts. What would be more problematic for the city—at least to the extent that it wishes to preserve something of its current role in the world—would be a marked drift away from the larger common-law tradition. This would make Hong Kong a far less appealing destination for international companies, who draw comfort from a legal environment that for all practical purposes is analogous to that in the most advanced Commonwealth economies........MORE
