Over the past year, Hong Kong has come back into focus around the world after a period of Covid-19 oblivion. Inside-the-Beltway analysts from Washington, DC, were among the first to begin revisiting the city, looking to feel the pulse of the city so damaged by the 2019 protests followed by the imposition of a National Security Law and the pandemic restrictions, when international travel came nearly to a halt.

Tourists are trickling back. In an echo of the response to Severe Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, the Hong Kong government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in a good-faith effort to restore Hong Kong’s vibe with mega-events and financial conferences. Looming on the horizon – in a positive way – are traditional Hong Kong mega-projects, the Lyric Theatre in West Kowloon’s new arts hub and Hong Kong Sports Center on the old Kai Tak runway. Both have cost billions and will add immeasurably to Hong Kong’s attractions in the performing arts and sports.

So, what has been the outcome of the pulse taking, event planning and building? There is a short answer and a long answer.

The short answer is, not enough. Hong Kong has become hyper-sensitive to any suggestion of criticism or accountability. The extreme level of rhetoric after footballer Lionel Messi failed to take the field for an exhibition game in Hong Kong in early February is just one example. Officials claimed a gross insult to the city, attendees were furious, and Tatler Asia finally repaid half the value of the tickets. Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, Messi missed another exhibition game, and nobody said a word. Hong Kong would have been far better off to take the no-show in stride. I have heard all too many exchanges in public and private, where any degree of criticism – even plain vanilla analysis – is taken as lack of “love” for Hong Kong.

Abroad, despite the visits and pulse-taking, views of Hong Kong from Washington or London remain binary. It is not what it once was, and maybe never will be.

Let’s turn to the long answer. Each will have their own. Mine is that Hong Kong is evolving. It faces geopolitical and economic circumstances that might crush a lesser place. It has not been crushed; its relationship with Beijing has not actually changed; its economy has been pummeled by the same forces that have hit the rest of the world through a combination of higher interest rates, US-China tensions, and China’s own growth slowdown. All of these forces are still playing out. Some would contest that Hong Kong has been crushed, that the swift passage of Article 23 is one more piece of evidence of Beijing’s interference in politics, and that Hong Kong’s once-vibrant economy has stalled.

Let’s take these assertions one by one.

First, the question of Hong Kong’s overall ability to withstand existential threats. Hong Kong’s entire history has been as a global port and melting pot. Demographic change is its métier; it was a collection of sleepy Hakka Chinese fishing villages prior to 1842, a polyglot entrepot thereafter. Its resilience – not unlike that of the United States – hinges on its diversity and ability to adapt. It is one of the world’s most global cities, which means that in a time of American dominance of global networks, its elites and others adapted. As China became the factory of the world in the 1990s, and the Asian middle class exploded in the 2000s, Hong Kong became an essential hub of manufacturing knowhow, trade and less mentioned but important, marketing knowledge transfer especially to mainland China. The current geopolitical landscape, peppered with miniature Black Swans, Grey Swans and other unpredictable and predictable wildlife, gives Hong Kong better than even odds of making it through. Success goes to the adaptable.

Second, Hong Kong has seen growing unease by the central government that began in 2014, with Beijing’s administrative White Paper on the Separate Administrative Region, as the national government started to worry that Hong Kong was fomenting its own color revolution. The 2019 protests resulted in the imposition of a National Security Law in 2020, electoral transformation that followed, and the passage of Article 23 on security matters on March 19, 2024. The central and Hong Kong governments maintain that these have restored “stability”. Abroad they have been described as acts of repression. Their scope, however, has been limited, and the central government has gone to great lengths to state that not only will it continue to respect “One Country, Two Systems”, but also Hong Kong’s separate status will continue after 2047, which was the end-goal referred to in the Basic Law of 1992. Since 1997, Beijing was the undisputed sovereign, and took actions up to a point when it felt that sovereignty was threatened.

Third, the economy. No argument that Hong Kong has been hammered, and that its economy has stalled. It needs to find new drivers, possibly in some of the places that it found growth in the 1980s and 1990s. During those decades, Hong Kong’s manufacturing base was moving to South and East China, but it was also powerfully allied with overseas Chinese capital and knowhow spread through Southeast Asia in doing so. Southeast Asia itself may have a total economy the size of Guangdong province, but it is growing much faster, and has the assets of a much younger workforce than Northeast Asia and resources. Victor Fung and others argue that Hong Kong should look at itself as a north-south hub of finance and trade, between China and South and Southeast Asia, not just a finance center for the Bay Area.

Among the most secure industry in Hong Kong, and its future, is finance, which is tied to its role as a financial gateway for China, whether supporting Chinese capital in the Middle East or building international markets for the renminbi. Its financial professionals, mainland and local Chinese, Singaporean, British, Canadian, American or other nationalities and ethnicities, share the language of finance. Many are trained in the west and have a depth of understanding of global capital markets matched only in New York. You could argue that they are here because of tax breaks or the availability of cheap domestic workers or Hong Kong’s outdoors, but they are here, creating a talent pool that Singapore and other Asian centers are unlikely to match any time soon.

The foundation for their presence is the strength of British common law, the UK’s finest legacy to Hong Kong, and a phalanx of legal and service professionals that are every bit as sophisticated and attuned to the capital markets as the financial crew. Finally, the capital markets they tap into are the largest in the world, after New York. While no economy can survive on finance alone, the spillover from finance into services, retail, entertainment, even construction, is substantial. Bond issues, for example, will cover budgetary shortfalls of the beautiful new Herzog de Meuron designed M+ Museum.

In short, Hong Kong needs to be more self-confident, buckle up, work out that no place is immune from criticism, keep calm and carry on. Or to put it another way, look out the window and be captured by some of the most beautiful natural landscapes of any city on earth. It will be here when our current tempest is long gone.

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