Advertisement
City Beat
Hong KongHealth & Environment
Tammy Tam
Tammy Tam

City Beat | How ‘two systems’ under ‘one country’ can facilitate a full reopening for Hong Kong

  • The city watched with envy as places such as Singapore returned to mostly normal life following the worst of the Covid-19 crisis
  • While Hong Kong must operate as part of the nation, its high degree of autonomy also offers the chance to show the mainland what responses to the pandemic work

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
8
Onlookers wave national and Hong Kong flags as fishing boats marking the 25th anniversary of the handover sail through Victoria Harbour. Photo: AFP
Tammy Tam

Ever since late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping decided to open up China in the late 1970s, Hong Kong started playing a significant role in connecting the mainland with the world.

Advertisement
Unfortunately, this bridging function has diminished in recent years, and cross-border trust has yet to be re-established after the anti-government protest chaos of 2019. Economically, Hong Kong has been scrambling for a repositioning with the mainland becoming the world’s second-largest economy.

The city now seems to be picking up on its uniqueness, but ironically, the timing could not be worse.

Hong Kong has eased its quarantine rules. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
Hong Kong has eased its quarantine rules. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
Hong Kong has followed Beijing’s strict “dynamic-zero” strategy for Covid-19 for about three years, hoping to first achieve quarantine-free travel for residents crossing the border into the mainland.
With little progress on that front, Hong Kong’s new leader, John Lee Ka-chiu has announced a significant reduction of the hotel quarantine period for arrivals from the previous seven days to a “3+4” arrangement – three days in a hotel followed by four days of medical surveillance at home – surprisingly shorter than the expected “4+3” or even “5+2” format earlier hinted by the government.

Sceptics still question how such a partial relaxation can help Hong Kong out of its economic downturn, but the city is the envy of counterparts on the mainland, where easing quarantine is unthinkable if infections are on the rise. Hong Kong has been recording an average of more than 4,000 cases daily for more than three weeks, with no sign of improvement.

Practically speaking, when most of the world is “living with the virus”, Hong Kong can be seen as a pilot study for Beijing to fine-tune its many restrictions for the rest of the country.

Advertisement
Advertisement