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Neither violence, nor Beijing, can fix Hong Kong’s housing shortage and lack of a social safety net

  • Many Hongkongers have lost out due to economic changes, and many have deep-seated distrust of mainland China
  • The Hong Kong government must first address their financial insecurities, before it can work on fostering a sense of Chinese identity

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Illustration: Stephen Case
Hong Kong is now going through one of its worst-ever crises. It did not have to happen, but this is not the time for recriminations. An independent inquiry over the extradition bill affair may help us learn how such a crisis may be avoided in the future, but cannot provide guidance on how to move forward.
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Some blame foreign countries for instigating and supporting the protest movement. Some blame supporters of Taiwan independence for egging the protesters along. Some blame certain wealthy individuals, especially former mainland residents, who may have the incentive to trash the bill. All may have lent support to the protesters, not for the good of Hong Kong, but for their own self-interest. However, it is not enough to blame them – we must understand why they succeeded.

To find a way forward, one must recognise that the current disturbances reflect deep-rooted, but until now largely latent, anger and discontent among lower-income groups in Hong Kong, especially younger people. The discontent and perceived lack of hope provided the environment for domestic and foreign agitators to succeed.

There are two main sources of local anger and discontent. First, economic globalisation has indeed benefited every country and region in the world in the aggregate, including mainland China and Hong Kong. However, while globalisation brought prosperity everywhere, it also created winners and losers.

Unfortunately, though there are, in principle, enough gains for everyone to be better off, the free market cannot compensate the losers. It is up to each government to undertake redistribution of gains from economic globalisation so that everyone wins. This has not been done in most countries and regions, including Hong Kong. It has resulted in stagnant or even declining living standards for the lower-income groups and soaring income and wealth disparities.

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