In Chinese mythology, the phoenix represents resilience, duty, propriety and virtue. Perhaps it should be the symbol of our times: Hongkongers must take more individual and collective responsibility for the city’s economic future.
The past will not deliver the future for Hong Kong and the private sector needs to take on more direct responsibility, to identify and embrace today’s vastly different economic opportunities.
Comparisons to a pre-2020 Hong Kong can be an unhelpful distortion when assessing the trajectory of the city’s new economic drivers.
This brings us to the question of why Hong Kong’s private sector is not converting these burgeoning visitor numbers into considerable economic benefit for the city, for example, the art and culture, hotel, restaurant and entertainment sectors.
I believe the issue lies in private-sector attitudes highlighted by a recent characterisation of Hong Kong as having “structural problems”. I reject this. Yes, there have been structural changes and we have indeed entered a new era, but to see the new environment as a permanent problem belies the message that the large and growing number of visitors to Hong Kong are sending us: “We love to visit but our needs have changed.”
‘Chubby Hearts’ won’t make Hong Kong an arts and culture hub
‘Chubby Hearts’ won’t make Hong Kong an arts and culture hub
Such laws exist in almost every advanced country in an often-contentious balance between national security objectives and individual rights. Consider Australia, where the Human Rights Law Centre recently argued for 13 proposed changes to the country’s national secrecy laws which criminalise whistle-blowers and journalists in certain circumstances.
While we in Hong Kong can do little to change the focus of the external propaganda machines, we can take greater responsibility in embracing our changed but still positive economic fundamentals, and in taking action to grow value for the city and its people. It’s not time to sit around in hope but instead to act – and it’s certainly not the time to passively hope the Hong Kong government will find the answers for the private sector in this distinctly market-driven city.
Damien Green is a Hong Kong-based financial services executive and the Founder of a Hong Kong Creative Arts Social Enterprise, StudioKT
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