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
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.
