David Dodwell

Inside Out | Rambunctious Dubai a reminder to Hong Kong – and the world – that democracy is not everything

While Hong Kong has been unfriended by a West concerned about the city’s democratic freedoms and legal system, Dubai, an absolute monarchy, attracts less hand-wringing

The emirate seems to have borrowed the freewheeling spirit of Hong Kong of old, more crucial to progress than the specifics of its political architecture

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The Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, is lit up during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Dubai on December 31. The visionary and moderate approach of Dubai’s leaders has contributed to its prosperity. Photo: Reuters

David Dodwell

Published: 7:30pm, 7 Jan 2024

Just off a plane from Dubai, Hong Kong’s nervous melancholy can be smelled in the air. Unfriended and wilfully misdefined by much of the Western world and its media, and unclear about how best to carve a future that might match its strong growth over so many decades, the contrast with boisterous Dubai, still humming from the tens of thousands that attended last month’s Cop28 climate summit, is palpable.

Attacked by the Western media for the national security law put in place after the street conflicts of 2019, with its democratic credentials – if it ever had any under Britain’s control – in shreds, and the integrity of its legal system being questioned, confidence in Hong Kong’s future is clearly at a record low.

The terrible recessionary impact of strict anti-pandemic measures for nearly three years, with its punishing impact on the stock and property markets, tourism and consumer sentiment, has also not helped.

The contrast with Dubai is surreal. It has never had pretensions of being a democracy, instead being an absolute monarchy. But the absence of democracy does not seem to matter. Dubai has a chequered interest in human rights, and tough restraints on press freedom, but the Western press that hounds Hong Kong does not seem to care.

While the Western media continues to emphasise people seeking to flee Hong Kong (true in the emotional months following the 2019 violence, but not true any more), when it comes to Dubai, the narrative is of people flocking to live there.

As I ponder such inconsistency and hypocrisy, I am reminded of Richard Hughes’ description of Hong Kong and its people in his 1976 book Borrowed Place, Borrowed Time: “It is a rambunctious, freebooting colony, naked and unashamed, devoid of self-pity, regrets or fear of the future.”