The summer of Hong Kong’s discontent, 20 years after its return to China

Friedrich Wu says the political and socio-economic malaise that has been brewing here for the past decade is coming to a head with recent economic headwinds that are exposing the city’s fading competitiveness in its key industries. The anger that led to the Occupy protests in 2014 is still roiling

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Friedrich Wu

Published: 5:18pm, 22 Jun 2017Updated: 7:39pm, 22 Jun 2017

Hong Kong’s “fault lines” stem from chronic income stagnation and growing inequality, the soaring cost of living driven by ever-rising housing prices, and depressing employment prospects for the young. Illustration: Craig Stephens

On July 1, Hong Kong will commemorate the 20th anniversary of its transfer of sovereignty from Britain to China. The Hong Kong government has budgeted an extravagant HK$640 million to celebrate this milestone, but ironically has also revealed that it will mobilise 10,000 police officers to “protect” the attending state leaders, including President Xi Jinping ( 習近平 ). The local authorities also disclose that “huge barriers” will be erected to cordon off the hotel where China’s VIPs will take up their three-day residence.

For those who have followed Hong Kong’s tumultuous political developments in the past three years, such tight security measures do not come as a surprise. Rather than aiming to deter assassination attempts or terrorist attacks, they are more intended to shield state leaders from the embarrassment of being harassed by unruly local pro-democracy protesters and pro-independence “separatists”. Tellingly, these over-the-top procedures only serve to highlight the political and socio-economic malaise that has been brewing in the SAR for nearly a decade.

Imagining a far better Hong Kong, and rueing 20 years of misrule

On the pretext of the lack of progress in constitutional reform and universal suffrage, the eruption of the “Umbrella Revolution” in September 2014, which spurred tens of thousands of protesters to occupy public areas over a three-month period, was a clear manifestation of the local people’s discontent with what they perceive to be an unresponsive and unrepresentative SAR government. They hold it accountable for the development of several economic and social “fault lines” that have a detrimental impact on their livelihoods.

A man sits inside his “coffin home” in a subdivided flat in Hong Kong. The city’s Gini coefficient, which measures its income disparity, has climbed to a record high. Likewise, housing prices have become severely unaffordable. Photo: Bloomberg

Hong Kong’s “fault lines” stem from chronic income stagnation and growing inequality, the soaring cost of living driven by ever-rising housing prices, and depressing employment prospects for the young. According to official statistics, the real wage index for non-professional and non-managerial employees has been on a downward trend for several years. Even graduates are facing increasingly bleak employment prospects due to oversupply by eight government-funded academies plus a myriad of privately-funded post-secondary institutions, as well as a mismatch between salary expectations and skills.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Gini coefficient has climbed to a record high, from 0.518 in 1996 to 0.539 in 2016. Likewise, housing prices have become severely unaffordable, with the median home price being 18 times the median household income, the world’s highest ratio.