Inside Out | What Hong Kong’s crisis and Britain’s Brexit woes have in common

In both cases, deep societal rifts and a political misstep combined to wreak political civil war and economic harm, leaving deep, perhaps permanent scars. Brexit’s lesson for Hong Kong? It is hard to stuff the genie back in the bottle

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An elderly woman with a British flag at a protest in Hong Kong on June 12. Brexit has paralysed government for three years. Will it take us in Hong Kong as long to find resolution? Photo: Antony Dickson

Published: 7:00am, 21 Oct 2019Updated: 7:24am, 21 Oct 2019

The BBC breaking news report on Saturday was depressingly familiar: “A state of emergency has been declared … after protests sparked by increased metro tickets turned violent.

“Protesters – many of them high school and university students – jumped turnstiles, attacked several underground stations, started fires and blocked traffic, leaving widespread damage across the city and thousands of commuters without transport.

“Television pictures showed protesters throwing stones, attacking police vehicles and burning at least one bus. Anti-riot police used tear gas and batons against some protesters, who have been demonstrating for days … The unrest exposes divisions in the [city], one of the [region's] wealthiest but also one of its most unequal. There have been growing complaints about the cost of living … and calls for economic reforms.”

No, not Hong Kong, but Santiago in Chile, where I have to fly to in two weeks for the Apec leaders’ meetings on Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.

There is little comfort in discovering that Hong Kong is not alone, but it is perhaps important to recognise that Hong Kong’s months of steadily escalating violence may not be entirely due to the bewildering incompetence of our administration.

It may in part be driven by wider and more profound global challenges, with their roots in the extreme inequalities that have emerged over the past three decades of strong global growth, during which most of the gains have cascaded into the pockets of the lucky 0.1 per cent elite. It may also in part be due to the unintended and unanticipated consequences of the radical “quantitative easing” measures introduced after the global financial crash of 2008, measures that have brought interest rates close to zero, immiserating anyone with cash savings or pensions, and enriching those luckily endowed with assets – mainly property and equities.