Today is the 67th anniversary of the proclamation of the creation of the PRC: China’s national holiday. I will be observing it this week with a series on China and its neighbors, starting with Hong Kong, which, as we know it, is doomed.
Why do I say that?
Hong Kong is an incredibly intense, vibrant, capitalist city. Virtually every square inch of it is covered by a mall of some sort. When I went to Shanghai, I described it as two parts Manhattan, one part Las Vegas, and one part Disneyland; Hong Kong is that times ten. I would guess that everything in the world is for sale there, and I mean that in the most literal sense.
When the Chinese leadership made the deal with the UK to regain control of Hong Kong, they agreed to leave it more or less as is, because it was the only goose in town, and they didn’t want to kill the golden egg. Today, a much more powerful and prosperous China has Shanghai as an alternative financial center, so the economic value of Hong Kong to the leadership has diminished, and is decreasing further over time.
No one who watched the events in 1989 has any doubts that the government would rather turn Hong Kong into a cinder than permit it to evolve into a genuinely democratic state. That includes the vast majority of the residents. And so, while some of the younger residents in particular will engage in very public fights for more rights, the trend will run slowly, but inexorably, in the other direction. In the long run, you can’t have a country with two different political systems, and the one that will prevail will be the one on the mainland.