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During the last three months, Hong Kong has been in a state of great turmoil with frequent mass demonstrations often involving illegal actions, including unlawfully blocking thoroughfares and seizing of government buildings, disturbing and wrecking subway stations, and temporarily shutting down the Hong Kong International Airport, harassing people who are not sympathetic to the demonstrations, and attacking police with laser beams, rocks, metal rods, and gas bombs. Hong Kong is no longer an attractive or safe place to be and has severely affected the business and livelihood of a large number of ordinary people living in Hong Kong.

To understand the situation in Hong Kong, we review what triggered the current turmoil, and more importantly review several major developments in Hong Kong since 1979 when Great Britain and China first discussed the transition of Hong Kong from a British colony to its return to China.

What Triggered the Current Turmoil?

Because a Hong Kong young man murdered his young Hong Kong girl friend while they were on a trip to Taiwan. Apparently they got into a heated argument during the trip, and he killed her. He then chopped up her body, put it in a suitcase and disposed of the suitcase in Taiwan, and he returned to Hong Kong. Later he was questioned and admitted to the crime, and the suitcase with the chopped-up body was recovered in Taiwan. Since there was no extradition law between Hong Kong and Taiwan, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, in responding to a plea for justice by the girl’s mother, proposed an extradition law between Hong Kong and Taiwan so that this person can be extradited to Taiwan to face prosecution. [1]

Protests then erupted in Hong Kong against this proposed extradition law, because of the argument that anyone who criticizes the Chinese government could be sent to China to face prosecution. However, this criticism is really unfounded because the proposed extradition law explicitly states that it can be applied for only certain circumstances, and cannot be applied to anyone just for expressing a political or religious viewpoint. Furthermore, the application of the extradition law must be approved by the Hong Kong judicial system, which currently at the highest level all judges in Hong Kong are British citizens. As a matter of fact, this proposed extradition law is more restricted than standard international extradition law, e.g., it can be applied only if the penalty for the unlawful action must exceed more than a seven-year jail sentence, whereas the standard international extradition law requires only a three-year sentence.

Protests Continued Even After the Hong Kong Government Stated That They Will No Longer Pursue the Proposed Extradition Law:

Apparently, it is not the proposed extradition law that underlies the protest, because even after the proposed extradition law was redrawn, violent protests continue. Apparently there were other reasons, and the proposed extradition law, although many Hong Kong citizens might support it, was just an excuse.

Let’s discuss Hong Kong’s past.

Hong Kong’s Past :

Hong Kong was a British colony for about 150 years as the result of a series of unequal treaties, and it was not returned back to China until 1997.

First Opium War: As the result of the First Opium War that China lost to Great Britain, in 1842 Hong Kong Island was ceded in perpetuity by China to Great Britain.

Second Opium War: As the result of the Second Opium War that China lost to Great Britain and France, in 1860 Kowloon was also ceded in perpetuity by China to Great Britain.

Third Treaty in 1898: Great Britain needed more land to develop Hong Kong. Therefore, in 1898, Great Britain arranged to lease for 99 years the New Territories adjacent to Kowloon. This lease would end in 1997.

Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984: Since the lease in the New Territories will end in 1997, for large business developments in Hong Kong to make financial sense, investors wanted their investments to last for more than 20 years, so Great Britain in 1979 started discussion with China on a transition plan for Hong Kong. In 1984, Great Britain and China signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration that all of Hong Kong will be returned back to China on July 1, 1997, and China will administer Hong Kong under a “One China Two Systems” political structure. This provides a longer-term 50-year investment window.

Strategic Value of Hong Kong and China’s Entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO): Because the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was not recognized by many countries for about two decades after the PRC was established in 1949, business dealings as well as other interactions with China were often done via an intermediary. Hong Kong was that natural intermediary, thus resulting in Hong Kong becoming a financial and banking center in Asia. Even after the U.S. established diplomatic relationship with PRC in 1979, a lot of the business dealings with China was still done via Hong Kong due to various trade restrictions until China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. Thus the strategic financial role of Hong Kong gradually decreased with time and then rapidly decreased since 2001. For example, nearly half of China’s trade went through Hong Kong in 1997, and that figure is now less than 12%.

In addition, China’s domestic economy also underwent a remarkable revival, especially during the last three decades. For example, in 1997, Hong Kong’s economy was about 30% the size of China’s, but in 2018 Hong Kong’s economy was only about 3% the size of China’s. This further indicates that Hong Kong’s strategic financial role has diminished significantly in the last two decades. We will revisit this issue later.

Several Existing Social/Economic/Political Problems in Hong Kong:

• Affordable Housing: With Hong Kong ranked as the world’s least affordable housing market, the most obvious problem is the lack of affordable housing. This is partially, but not totally, due to a lack of land. There may still be some land in the New Territories area that could be used to build more affordable housing, and if there isn’t, then more land can be constructed through landfills on the waters around Hong Kong.  Keep in mind that the Hong Kong International Airport was built partially on landfills.  The problem is that the will to do so is not to the level that is necessary.  Hong Kong has a modern and fairly comprehensive subway system, so if necessary with suitable expansion of the subway system, new public housing projects built in the New Territories or on landfilled land can still be within reasonable commuting distance of most of Hong Kong. More on this issue later.
• Insufficient Job Opportunities for Young People to Look Forward To:  As discussed earlier on the strategic value of Hong Kong as a financial and banking conduit to China decreased significantly in the last two decades and as China’s technological and manufacturing prowess grew exponentially, Hong Kong could no longer retain its position as the crown jewel of Asia .  Therefore, the young people of Hong Kong can no longer see a path forward that can lead to good paying jobs, especially when housing is so expensive in Hong Kong.
• Many People Have Poor Image of China:  Many people who live in Hong Kong left China as refugees.  Especially for those who left China in the first 30 years after 1949, China was a very poor country with frequent political upheavals.  Therefore, many of these people may have a very poor image of China and a dislike for the Chinese government, perhaps some even have a grudge to grind.
• Colonial Mentality Exists Among Many Youths:  Being under colonial rule for many generations and especially when Hong Kong was much more prosperous than China,  it is very easy to have a mentality that the British or the Western system of government is far superior than the Chinese system of government.  This kind of mentality is specially appealing to youths who have not been exposed to Western inequalities, violation of human rights, media biases, and regime change instigated by the U.S. government all over the world.

Hong Kong’s Present:

We now make several observations about the present Hong Kong.

Existing Social/Economic/Political Problems Make People Unhappy: The problems we mentioned earlier can create a lot of dissatisfaction for the people in Hong Kong. The lack of affordable housing and the lack of good future opportunities for youths are complex and caused by various factors, including global changes, the unwillingness of those in power in Hong Kong to make the necessary changes, the concern that creating a lot of affordable housing will decrease the value of existing housing owners who might have invested their life-long savings in purchasing their existing housing. Because Hong Kong is still under One China-Two systems, many of these problems are not due to the actions or non-actions of the Chinese government. Therefore, one needs to understand more clearly what are the causes of the problems and why the problems are not being addressed fast enough.

Lack of Proper Education About the World: Many young people in Hong Kong do not understand that there was no equality, respect for human rights, or democracy under Britain’s colonialist rule. The top leaders in Hong Kong were all appointed from London. The governing structure was determined from London. The people of Hong Kong did not have a vote on whom their leaders were. The people of Hong Kong were second class citizens. They were not taught, at least not emphasized, that Hong Kong became a colony of Great Britain because China lost the Opium War to Great Britain when the latter sold a highly addicted drug to the Chinese people, a drug that was forbidden in Great Britain. Furthermore, many youths were taught how evil the Hong Kong government is, and how the Western powers care about the welfare of the Hong Kong people. They learn about the ideal positive attributes of the West, but they have not seen or experienced many of the negative attributes of the West.

Unwilling to Acknowledge China’s Recent Phenomenal Advancement: The people of Hong Kong remember how poor China was, but do not give credit to the Chinese government that lifted about 800 million people out of poverty in less than half a century, and transformed the weak man of Asia into the world’s second largest economy and military power. It is easy to forget that the most important human right is the right to survive.

Unfair Governing Structure in Hong Kong: All the top judges are British citizens appointed for life from London. One of the consequences is that protestors who obviously violated laws were often immediately released on bail. Media people can apply for media credentials, instead of obtaining such credentials from the police department. This has resulted in certain so-called media people protecting law violators and even disrupting police trying to establish order.  

News Media Biases: Unless you have friends or relatives who live in Hong Kong or unless you collect and analyze a lot of reports and videos from Hong Kong, you can easily be misled. For example, there is a video that shows a Hong Kong woman seemingly yelling at the police, but the segment of the video before this showed this woman yelling at the protestors, but then some of the protestors turned her around to face the police. The edited video that was then shown presented just the opposite message. Another image from the news media is that there is a lot of police brutality against the protestors. This is again so far from the truth. Independent observers would conclude that the Hong Kong police have bent over backward in not taking more aggressive but completely justified actions against the many illegal actions of the protestors. As a matter of fact, if this were happening in Great Britain, France, the U.S., or any other Western country, the protestors conducting such illegal actions would have been arrested almost immediately.

External Instigators:  Although it is seldom reported in Western media, there is so much evidence of external instigators of the protests in Hong Kong.  These external instigators include those Chinese running from the law, from Great Britain, Taiwan, and especially from the U.S.  One large U.S. organization involved in such activities is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which was founded in 1983, when the spotlight on the CIA was so intense that new methods – without a clear connection the US state – had to be found to promote US interest in foreign political systems.  In 1991, The Washington Post quoted Allen Weinstein, one of the NED founders, as saying “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”  The NED website states “it receives an annual appropriation from the US Congress through the Department of State, to help the US Government.  There is no reason why the U.S.’s Hong Kong Consulate is the largest consulate in the world with numerous contractors.  It is well documented that U.S. top state department and Hong Kong consulate staffs have met many times with protest leaders.  Who do you think provides the funding to outfit large number of protestors with masks, hard hats, other protective gear, and attack weapons.  This is an internal Chinese affair.  Countries like Great Britain and the U.S. have no business in interfering in the internal affairs of China.  George Galloway, a former member of British Parliament, has stated that “Hong Kong is not Britain’s business and criticism of the Hong Kong government is pure British hypocrisy with a capital H.”  Similar remark applies to the U.S. also.

The Livelihood of Ordinary Hong Kong Citizens Are Severely Affected:  All these violent protests have lasted more than three months and have basically crippled much of Hong Kong’s business, especially its tourism business.  Hotels and restaurants are empty; shoppers are scarce; businesses don’t want to come to Hong Kong to do business.  What may be legitimate concerns have morphed into senseless violent protests bent on destroying the fabrics of Hong Kong and weaken China, which is exactly what the foreign instigators want to achieve.

Hong Kong’s Future:

What will happen to Hong Kong? What will be best in the future for the lives of the people of Hong Kong? The two main problems discussed in the section “Hong Kong’s Present” are both serious and difficult problems, but both of them are solvable if the government and people of Hong Kong work together with the Chinese government with sincerity and with the best interests of the people of Hong Kong in mind.

For the affordable housing problem, we already mentioned that a large number of affordable housing can be built in the new territories if land is still available or on landfills on waters around Hong Kong. Furthermore, with suitable expansions of the vast and efficient Hong Kong subway system, their locations are still within reasonable commuting distance of most of Hong Kong.

However, there is reluctance and perhaps even opposition to building a large number of affordable housing. The most prosperous people in Hong Kong, including many in the Hong Kong governing structure, are the major real estate and property owners in Hong Kong. Building a large number of affordable housing will reduce the value of their investment. Furthermore, even the existing owners of modest apartments, who might have invested many years of their life-long savings to buy their existing apartment, might object to building a large number of affordable housing, because then their investment in buying their apartment will erode in value. Also, as long as the new housing is affordable, they can be bought or rented. In either case, the lack of a solution to the affordable housing problem is not due to the Chinese government because Hong Kong is under a One China-Two Systems governing structure. As a matter of fact, the Chinese government’s hands are tied by the One China-Two Systems governing Hong Kong.

For the lack of job opportunities problem, Hong Kong can be a critical part of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (also known as the Pearl River Delta). The transformation of Shenzhen from a tiny fishing village just across the border from Hong Kong in the 1970s to the current metropolis of over 20 million people and the technological/innovation/manufacturing center of China can give you a glimpse of the vast possibilities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.

This requires joint planning and cooperation between Hong Kong and the rest of China. As a matter of fact, the One China-Two Systems governance structure is one of the reasons holding back the development of Hong Kong. Instead of trying to keep China at arm’s length, the people of Hong Kong should welcome working closely with China for the benefits of both.

Joining the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area also offers another solution to the affordable housing problem, because the people of Hong Kong can move to one of many localities in this Greater Bay Area that can offer significantly less expansive housing.

Concluding Remarks: The long and often violent protests in Hong Kong have been extremely disruptive. They have severely affected the livelihood of the citizens of Hong Kong. If not handled properly and such disruptions do not end quickly, it can significantly decrease the chances to make Hong Kong to become again a vital and successful metropolis.

Hong Kong does have serious social/economic/political problems, including the lack of affordable housing and the apparent lack of a prosperous future for the youths of Hong Kong. But all those problems are surmountable as we briefly discussed. Furthermore, one must understand the causes of the problems and what are delaying the solutions. It is incorrect to blame all these problems on China because Hong Kong is still under a One China-Two Systems governing structure. As a matter of fact, the solutions can be better and come quicker if there is a closer collaborative working relationship with China.

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[1] For more information on the proposed extradition law: https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201903/26/P2019032600708.htm