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Hong Kong society
OpinionComment
Mike Rowse
Mike Rowse

Opinion | Biased Western narratives on Hong Kong will crumble if only foreigners would come here

  • The lingering effects of Hong Kong’s pandemic response, social unrest and poisonous Western narratives have stained the city’s global image
  • The more Westerners Hong Kong can draw, the easier it will be to overturn the negative narratives and subversion of antagonistic foreign governments

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Tourists at the Avenue of Stars at Victoria Harbour in Tsim Sha Tsui on October 2 during the Golden Week holiday period. Arrivals by mainland tourists are recovering, but Western tourists have been slow to return in the wake of travel restrictions being lifted. Photo: May Tse
Mike Rowse

Hong Kong has a problem at the moment attracting foreigners to our city, whether as tourists, professionals, business executives, entrepreneurs or just young people getting to see the world.

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This is an important issue: after all, we style ourselves as “Asia’s World City”, a cosmopolitan society where East meets West. At the moment some of the flavour is missing, and Hong Kong risks losing what distinguishes it from other major cities in the region, or even within China.
The situation is most starkly illustrated by the response to the government’s various schemes to attract talent. Mainlanders account for about 90 per cent of the successful applicants this year. As regards quality and skills levels, this is not a problem as the criteria ensure we are getting some of the best, but the composition is skewed.
It is similar with tourism. While the total numbers are starting to recover, growth has been strongest in the mainland market while long-haul tourism has been slow to grow back, partly because of a lack of flights.

So what are the causes, and what can be done to address the situation? Alas, the causes are many and varied, and not all can be tackled head-on. One major factor was our government’s draconian response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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There were punishing quarantine arrangements, inflexible rules – parents separated from children, grieving families unable to visit dying relatives and so on – and the slow winding down, with the mask mandate dropped only in March. These drove many expat families to quit Hong Kong either to return to their home countries or retreat to elsewhere in the region, in particular Singapore. Memories linger.
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