<story><title>Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/world/asia/hong-kong-china-handover.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>caretoomuch</author><text>As someone lived in Hong Kong for quite a while (during the tail of its heydays) but now in the US, Hong Kong is indeed in big trouble. But not for the reasons mentioned&amp;#x2F;implied in this article.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s very easy to buy into narratives such as authoritarianism vs democracy, communism vs capitalism, China vs Britain&amp;#x2F;West, tight control vs freedom as the reasons for Hong Kong&amp;#x27;s decline, but that&amp;#x27;s just short-circuited thinking for the lazy.&lt;p&gt;The real reason for Hong Kong&amp;#x27;s decline, is the failure&amp;#x2F;irresponsibility of Hong Kong&amp;#x27;s elite ruling class. Maybe to many people&amp;#x27;s surprise, since its handover to China, Hong Kong has effectively been ruled by the local elites, NOT by Beijing. Sure, Beijing appoints the governor, but the governors are locals, and there was never any direct &amp;quot;order&amp;quot; from Beijing, well, sorta until recently, when Beijing began to see the failure of the local Hong Kong government.&lt;p&gt;Those elites are composed of mega real estate&amp;#x2F;business tycoons. Being the elites in the most capitalist city-state in the world gives them tremendous wealth and power, but to the disappointment of Spider-man, with that great power there&amp;#x27;s no great responsibilities. The ruling class mega riches don&amp;#x27;t see income inequality as a problem, but a badge of honor for themselves, to show how &amp;quot;they&amp;#x27;ve made it&amp;quot;, while all the poors are just not smart&amp;#x2F;hardworking enough. Any efforts to &amp;quot;appease the poor&amp;quot; are hindered by the ruling business-politician symbiotics, because those efforts get in their way of accumulating more wealth.&lt;p&gt;The frustration of the youth and the poor stems from the sense of inequality, unfairness and despair as they see no chances of upward mobility. Yet, even the poorest in Hong Kong is a capitalist at heart, so they are poor not because of the rich, and they certainly do work hard, then who&amp;#x27;s to blame? China, Beijing, the mainlanders, because they are evil, communist, denying tian&amp;#x27;anmen square, yada yada...&lt;p&gt;On the contrary, when the ruling rich saw the rebellion of lower class, without knowing&amp;#x2F;admitting themselves are to be blamed, they seek help from Beijing. What does Beijing know about governing a country? More control! That&amp;#x27;s the only thing Beijing knows, and it&amp;#x27;s been working (kinda) with them. So that&amp;#x27;s how we get where we are now.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>FabHK</author><text>It goes both ways, though - the tacit deal is basically that the HK tycoons do not challenge the Chinese Communist Party&amp;#x27;s monopoly on power, and the CCP doesn&amp;#x27;t challenge the HK tycoons&amp;#x27; economic monopolies.&lt;p&gt;But, all in all, I agree. As I&amp;#x27;ve written in another thread:
The grievances of HK&amp;#x27;s population are real: a political and business establishment dominated by property tycoons (and increasingly mainland Chinese political factions) keen on maintaining their privileged position; huge economic inequality; a slow erosion of political liberties (&amp;quot;salami tactic&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;That all, of course, gave rise to the Umbrella Movement in 2014.&lt;p&gt;However, given that the Chinese Communist Party is not inclined to weaken its grip on power, and extremely protective of the (perceived) territorial integrity of China, I don&amp;#x27;t really see how this will end well. :-&amp;#x2F; Here&amp;#x27;s hoping.&lt;p&gt;For perspective, BTW: In 1997, HK&amp;#x27;s GDP was about one sixth of China&amp;#x27;s (even though China has 200x the people), and HK was an important conduit between China and the world: HK&amp;#x27;s port had more volume than Shanghai and Shenzhen together.&lt;p&gt;Today, HK&amp;#x27;s GDP is barely 3% of China&amp;#x27;s, and the ports of Shanghai and Shenzhen together have 3x the throughput of HK. (Just have a look at these pictures: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dailymail.co.uk&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;article-2478975&amp;#x2F;Shanghai-por..&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dailymail.co.uk&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;article-2478975&amp;#x2F;Shanghai-por...&lt;/a&gt;. )&lt;p&gt;HK used to be hugely important for China. Now, it isn&amp;#x27;t, and with rising Chinese nationalism, HK is being seen more and more like an unruly and spoiled child.</text></comment>
<story><title>Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/world/asia/hong-kong-china-handover.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>caretoomuch</author><text>As someone lived in Hong Kong for quite a while (during the tail of its heydays) but now in the US, Hong Kong is indeed in big trouble. But not for the reasons mentioned&amp;#x2F;implied in this article.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s very easy to buy into narratives such as authoritarianism vs democracy, communism vs capitalism, China vs Britain&amp;#x2F;West, tight control vs freedom as the reasons for Hong Kong&amp;#x27;s decline, but that&amp;#x27;s just short-circuited thinking for the lazy.&lt;p&gt;The real reason for Hong Kong&amp;#x27;s decline, is the failure&amp;#x2F;irresponsibility of Hong Kong&amp;#x27;s elite ruling class. Maybe to many people&amp;#x27;s surprise, since its handover to China, Hong Kong has effectively been ruled by the local elites, NOT by Beijing. Sure, Beijing appoints the governor, but the governors are locals, and there was never any direct &amp;quot;order&amp;quot; from Beijing, well, sorta until recently, when Beijing began to see the failure of the local Hong Kong government.&lt;p&gt;Those elites are composed of mega real estate&amp;#x2F;business tycoons. Being the elites in the most capitalist city-state in the world gives them tremendous wealth and power, but to the disappointment of Spider-man, with that great power there&amp;#x27;s no great responsibilities. The ruling class mega riches don&amp;#x27;t see income inequality as a problem, but a badge of honor for themselves, to show how &amp;quot;they&amp;#x27;ve made it&amp;quot;, while all the poors are just not smart&amp;#x2F;hardworking enough. Any efforts to &amp;quot;appease the poor&amp;quot; are hindered by the ruling business-politician symbiotics, because those efforts get in their way of accumulating more wealth.&lt;p&gt;The frustration of the youth and the poor stems from the sense of inequality, unfairness and despair as they see no chances of upward mobility. Yet, even the poorest in Hong Kong is a capitalist at heart, so they are poor not because of the rich, and they certainly do work hard, then who&amp;#x27;s to blame? China, Beijing, the mainlanders, because they are evil, communist, denying tian&amp;#x27;anmen square, yada yada...&lt;p&gt;On the contrary, when the ruling rich saw the rebellion of lower class, without knowing&amp;#x2F;admitting themselves are to be blamed, they seek help from Beijing. What does Beijing know about governing a country? More control! That&amp;#x27;s the only thing Beijing knows, and it&amp;#x27;s been working (kinda) with them. So that&amp;#x27;s how we get where we are now.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cilea</author><text>The same is happening to Taiwan (stuttered growth; in-fighting, etc.). The issue is deeply rooted in local power-wielding elites conspiring or opposing the ruling government. It has nothing to do democracy. The riches have already allocated some of their wealth elsewhere (see Canada and Australia), so they don&amp;#x27;t really care. It&amp;#x27;s always easy to blame it on Beijing, isn&amp;#x27;t it?</text></comment>