For millions of Hong Kongers, Sunday (July 1) marks the 15th anniversary of its return to Chinese sovereignty. There has been much reflection on how the city has changed and what its future holds, but to many, it isn't a moment to celebrate: Hong Kong has in recent years, been marred by grievances from pollution to corruption scandals to human rights to a widening gap between rich and poor, eventually to witness its GDP overtaken by regional rival Singapore.



China has kept its promise to retain the freewheeling capitalist system of the former British colony, but residents have grown increasingly uneasy about being ruled by the country’s authoritarian leaders. Only 1,200 elites among Hong Kong’s 7 million residents had the right to vote for their chief executive. Public mistrust of the central government in Beijing is at its highest at 37% since the handover in 1997, while approval ratings for Leung Chun-ying, the incoming Hong Kong chief executive, have dropped sharply even before his inauguration.

"We still cannot choose our chief executive, and that has caused many problems," said Andrew Shum, 25, who is organizing one of the demonstrations this weekend near where Chinese President Hu Jin Tao will be leading meetings. "People don't trust the chief executive, because they don't have a voice in voting for him." Many believe Beijing heavily influenced Leung Chun-ying's election, adding urgency to Hong Kongers' calls for full democracy.

15 years after the handover, Hong Kong faces a wide set of challenges, analysts say: Property prices have soared to their highest levels since 1997; the gap between rich and poor, already the greatest in Asia, is at its highest level in four decades; air pollution continues to worsen; and no clear path has been presented to usher in a system to allow the public to democratically elect leaders. Beijing has previously said that direct elections of the chief executive may be held as early as 2017, but has not provided any guarantees. The Communist Party of China is deeply unpopular especially among the young in Hong Kong.


15 years ago: Handover of Hong Kong

Moreover, Hong Kongers are annoyed by an influx of wealthy mainland visitors shopping at luxury goods outlets, which has helped push up rents and drive out local businesses. Some are outraged by mainland Chinese women who come to Hong Kong to give birth, seeking prized Hong Kong residency for their children and a way around the mainland’s one-child policy. Even little things like ads with simplified Chinese characters used on the mainland, rather than the traditional Chinese characters used in Hong Kong, have drawn residents’ ire.

“People are generally unhappy about the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and they are unhappy that the government can’t do much about it,” said Joseph Cheng, a political science professor at City University of Hong Kong. “They are critical about the collusion between government and big business and they are worried about the declining international economic competitiveness of the territory.”

"It is harder today to jump up to the middle class than in 1997, when you could still do it with hard work alone," said Gordon Hon, 39, a Hong Kong resident with a two-year university certificate in social work who leads rock climbing and other outdoor pursuits.


Plutocracy: Hong Kong becomes a territory ruled by billionaires

The share of Hong Kong's poor has risen from 14.8% in 1995 to 18% today, and while GDP has grown by 30% in the last ten years, median monthly income has been virtually stagnant, inching from HK$10,000 in 2001 to HK$11,000 today, partly due to the minimum wage law of last year.

In Hong Kong, the term “property hegemony” is widely used to describe how a few tycoon dynasties control most of the economy, with business empires spanning property, construction, hotels, transportation, telecoms, retail and banking. Just the four richest tycoon families (led respectively by Li Ka-shing, the Kwok brothers, Lee Shau-kee and Cheng Yu-tung) control roughly half of the economy. It is often said that for every dollar spent in Hong Kong, five cents goes into the pocket of Li Ka-shing.

It is however, not to be confused into that Hong Kong has declined. In 1995, Fortune magazine famously predicted the death of Hong Kong under Chinese rule.That didn't happen, instead island flourished since the handover; its $176 billion GDP in 1997 grew to $243 billion in 2011, while GDP per capita rose from $27,000 to $34,000 in the same period, according to the International Monetary Fund.


Hong Kong's financial industries topped the world in 2011, but no other new industries created

Hong Kong has steadily cemented its position as a global financial center. It became the largest market in the world for IPO (Initial Public Offering), it is the host to the largest pool of hedge fund assets invested in Asia and the most popular center for hedge fund startups. Moreover, mainland Chinese deposited $590 billion into Hong Kong in 2011 - that is more than the entire GDP of oil-rich Saudi Arabia. Hong Kong becomes Asia's top asset management center with $1.3 trillion in assets under management.

Hong Kong’s net foreign assets are the highest in the world at 288% of GDP, ahead of second-placed Switzerland on 157%., its currency, the Hong Kong dollar, is the ninth most traded currency in the world. The economy of Hong Kong is widely seen as robust, being ranked as the world's freest economy according to Index of Economic Freedom by the Heritage Foundation. Economic prosperity allows Hong Kong to build up a foreign reserves of $294.6 billion, more than even Germany.

The city's economy grew every year except in 2009, during the world economy abyss. Annual GDP growth has been 4.5% on average, and unemployment is never higher than 6%. With 41.92 million in tourist arrivals, Hong Kong tourism is second in Asia only to motherland China. Last year, Hong Kong exported $428 billion worth of goods, the fourth largest exporter in Asia after China, Japan and South Korea. The territory is the world's largest entrepot trading hub and its stock exchange the 6th biggest. But still it has fallen behind Singapore.

So what went wrong for Hong Kong?


Singapore overtaking Hong Kong's GDP

Hong Kong relies basically on its four core industries; financial services, tourism, professional services, and entrepot trading. The government once bet on "six new pillar industries" for growth; cultural and creative industries, medical services, education, innovation and technology, testing and certification services, and environmental industries - their development, so far, has been negligible. Simple as that, Hong Kong fails to make the transition towards a high-value-added, knowledge-based economy.

In contrast, rival Singapore has been highly successful in promoting new industries. Less than 2 years after its launch, the Singaporean gambling industries is now the world's second largest after Macau. Its high-tech industries blossomed and is now the #2 producer of silicon wafer in the world after Taiwan. The diversification into biotech and life sciences materialized, with Singaporean scientists now making inventions and exporting pharmaceuticals. Not only that, the city-state is now also the medical, IT, communication and R&D hub in Southeast Asia.

Singapore and Hong Kong both lost their manufacturing industries to neighboring low cost competition, but Singapore compensated that by shifting to high-tech manufacturing. Hong Kong, on the other hand, did almost nothing to reverse that.


Failure to diversify into high tech knowledge economy now haunting Hong Kong

It would be unfair to put the blame entirely on Hong Kong though, unlike Singapore who borders less-advanced states, Hong Kong's close proximity to Taiwan and South Korea, two of the world's leading IT manufacturing centers, and Japan, one of the world's most high-tech nation, means competition is much more stiffer than its Southeast Asian rivals. But the city could have carved out supporting niche industries just like Switzerland, Luxembourg or Liechtenstein, who are all surrounded by economic, financial and technological powerhouse France, Germany and Italy.

Hong Kong's overly powerful oligarchs - the tycoons, is also a hindrance to the creation of new industries. Unlike Singapore who works to suppress any groups from becoming too dominant, Hong Kong tolerates supreme power yielded by its most prominent businessmen. New technologies may bring upon radical change in wealth, just look at how Microsoft's Bill Gates, Oracle's Larry Ellison, Dell's Michael Dell, Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg catapulted to the top of billionaire list in the shortest time.

The wealthiest Hong Kong business dynasties would definitely wish to maintain the status quo at all costs, and with their sway on the economy, it is of no wonder Hong Kong remains stuck to its 'traditional industries' while Singapore surged ahead with its technological industries.


And apparently, the Lion City wins the game not by stubbornly trying to compete in traditional industries (Singapore still lag behind Hong Kong in financial services, tourism, professional services, and entrepot trading), but through success in the creation of multiple new industries

Sos Miri

Malaysian. Please wake up.

Semua salah TVB

zimbabwe: 47 years with africa, we slightly lost to msia

China = Voldermort

and here we are laughing at singapore while thinkings "whats next" for malaysia

whoever wins... we lose

communism is cancer to humanity and communist chinaman is a disgrace to all other chinese

good article...

salah umno

kuomintang faster go take over china

Malaysia tried to create industries but the the people(Malaysian) like to kick Malaysia in the balls as usual. Got car industry they curse and try to ruin it to the ground. Got tourism sector they tried to tone it down(cannot be sexy at the beach, cannot drink..bla bla) cozz its too against religion.. plenty more to list ... ohh Malaysia only going down the drain we go

Not bad... Today I don't get a chance to report people posting

TL;DR

This post has been edited by Xabrius: Nov 19 2012, 05:44 PM

TLDR,

But i'm guessing HK people are blaming the opening up of HK to China because it attracted wealthy China people to come over, which in turn inflated the local prices to higher, and the fact many Chinese come over and grab their jobs, and also because it cost more population in HK.

Well, think about it, without these China rich people coming in, it won't help the already deteriorating HK economy.

Singapore also has big flow of rich people coming in, why blame China? Losers.

If the cars we made were good, I don't think people want to criticize.

At any rate, the roads are still flooded with Proton and Perodua. The government already given the biggest advantage it can to our car industry, what more do they want? Everyone MUST buy proton/perodua and foreign car totally banned?

Most western countries don't really care where the players originate from, they only look at the flag they represent so your point is invalid, only valid to people who are jealous of Singapore like SE-A Countries.

You look at America, you look at France, they also import alot of foreign players and make them national players, just you didn't notice because most are in group sports.

Also most Blacks in America & France did come from another country many decades ago.

YOu go to Singapore you will know why people don't come back:

1st thing is the Economy, your expenditure becomes halfed while house & car remains the same financial load
2nd children gets better education over there, as Jet Li says so
3rd the safety over there is much better than most SEA countries, it has deteriorated but it's still one of the safest
4th Transportation over there is good, it takes at most 45minutes to get from extreme ends of the island and you hardly need to spend too much time changing mode of transport
5th doing business there is much easier than here, they have better ports, better tax rates, little corruption so anyone with skills & knowledge can do business easily

Sure the house are expensive and small but i guess they rather live in small house and enjoy the above benefits.

Malaysia is only good if you are rich & powerful.


This post has been edited by advocado: Nov 19 2012, 05:58 PM

There is no pride on the ground when these people win.

The only people cheerin on for them are the media and the gov. We commoners don't even bother about them.

Whereas when our own local people, even if they only compete in SEA games, even if they don't win medals, we feel very proud of them.

What to do, silly as it is, we have no control over such policy of importing people.

Winner will always be winner, nobody is gonna talk about how you win as long as you win.

So Malaysia got Silver & Bronze in Olympic, but what you think if a Foreign national played for Malaysia and gotten us a Gold? It's a legit win and it'll put Malaysia on the map.

Like I said, that may be the sentiment of the international community.

But for us citizens, it's not glorious at all.. To be honest, most of us don't even know the imported player's name.

If Lee Chong Wei was imported from elsewhere, you will see the stark difference in the reaction of the local people.

You can buy medals, but you can't buy pride.

This post has been edited by Stomachpain: Nov 19 2012, 08:06 PM

singapore, helped by msian.

hongkong, helped by chinaman.

so who win?

in the end it boiled downs to which country have the most powerful military resources

hk is supposed to be a good place to live....great food, great weather, not-so-polite people....
but air pollution is severe...universal suffrage not practiced....influx of rich chinese causing housing price to skyrocket....hk ppl work for 2 generations to pay off debts....

really sad.

dun worry we still better than cambodia - BN

hongkong too many chinese,,, they need indians and malays to prosper

We still better and more develop than Zimbabwe and many country ..

> complains about country not progressing
> sits in front of a computer all day

/k/tards

sarng, jangan tak sarng..

I long time know already. Country in the negative is shit.

Is it right to post this thread in Kopitiam not RWI?

harga mcdonald's big mac?

This

I think so too ... wah big mac so cheap

hongkong?

your kids might end up working those lowly paid job.

in msia lowly paid job are by bangla. bersyukur lah.

meanwhile somewhere in Malaysia......ZzzzzzzzZzzzzz

don't wake me up....i'm praying...god will protect our country

HK and Singapore competing fiercely to outperform each other.

Meanwhile Malaysia is like the retarded kid playing guli in the backyard.

BN need to songlap to prosper

At least got Indonesia & Philippines as playmates ma while Thailand secretly work it's way up.

between HK and SG, i choose the first.
but i dun give a fark to both either. i only care for my own country.

i want HK style with cheaper house price.

malaysian themself is the problem, we need the dictator like sg

HK is rude, no manners, buildings are not properly maintained.

My friends in KL keep tell me, HK so good la, public transport awesome. place very clean.

I just answer them, Please go to Singapore and compare again.

interms of environment, SG wins HK a lot. Only thing good in HK is the food is better than SG. Thats all.

Interms on infrastructure, SG is a lot better.

Interms of salary, HK higher by 10-20% (information from a HK friend working in SG).

Interms of air quality, SG is 9999x better than HK (according to that guy as well).

1 thing that SG is good at is maintaning its building. You hardly see any fugly building around.
they will repaint the buildings every 5-10 years. while in HK, just watch TVB. u will see many fugly building around.

sad that HK can't do anything about the air pollution.

lol

Don't agree with the quote that Malaysian try to curse and ruin its own auto industry. It is the government and their cronies that are doing that. They are the one that ruin msia auto industry.

Too bad, it is QFT.

Too bad, it is QFT.

i guess Religion is the issue. We can clearly see developing countries are under what rg and the non-developing are under what rg.

Religion + long beard hair = Restriction = Limited Expansion

This post has been edited by denzel88: Nov 20 2012, 12:26 AM

a country which have various precious resources also lose...haih, pathetic the way this country goes, the leader just taking care of their own pocket instead of nation wealth....

HK have pinoy, bangla, pakis too and those who stay long enough can speak cantonese fyi, so stfu nub

We all know what the issue is..

Africa is also extremely rich in resources but the people are suffering badly..

Only a few privileged ones live like kings.

Chinese

Makin banyak resource, makin banyak rasuah. Resource curse.

we already have a fair share of dictator....the iron fist....even that still sucks compare to singapore

NEP kill us off.
making the whole economy inefficient.
misuse of NEP making it worse.

still these is just a part of factor that we are less competitive than our neighbors.

ringgit pegging have been a serious problem if we aim to become financial hubs.
making us less competitive compare to singapore or hk. as their trade are much more free flows than ours.
badawi sleeping periods also damped our development by several years.

Canto ppl....haiz. They just cant learn to live with others. Heck, they cant even speak proper english despite being ruled by the british for so long, compare that to India. Just look at those chinatown in all western countries, they still speak canto and refuse to mingle with the rest.

Cronyism, nepotism and corruption are the obstacle to growth.

Change or sink, we don't have much option to choose frankly.

HK nice place to visit but not nice place to live.

Unless you damn rich, you live in small pigeon hole.

People are damn competitive. And their mouth is like rinsed with oil. Don't even know when they are telling the truth.

And then, no freedom. At least we can still be fags for PR or BN.

China already start brainwashing their children in schools. Sooner or later, they will loose many of their Cantonese uniqueness.

dude. lots of indians in hong kong la. they speak even better cantonese than malaysian chinese.






This post has been edited by quintessential: Nov 20 2012, 02:36 AM

enlighten us with you wonderful economics

I Tot KMT was from China. Tak bace buku sejarah ke?

Got banyak Indian in Malaysia don't know how to speak Indian aka Tamil lah.

ppl like you, and your kids can work in shopping mall for the rest of your life.

housemaid is for Philippine and technical jobs are done by china mainland

so noob like you will stuck in cybercafe cleaning table.


next time, just stfu if you are really noob. when is the last time u read chinese in china website? tvb drama wont help noob like you.

zimbabwe

It would be unfair to put the blame entirely on Hong Kong though, unlike Singapore who borders less-advanced states, Hong Kong's close proximity to Taiwan and South Korea, two of the world's leading IT manufacturing centers, and Japan, one of the world's most high-tech nation, means competition is much more stiffer than its Southeast Asian rivals

wahahaha

really?

not so sure but last time when i make my travel to HK, the peoples are so friendly. just dun block at left side when gong to ladder or escalator

somemore got chance to chit chat with a pretty seller at "big buddha" there.

i found that nthe air quality wasn't that bad. But hey its true that hongkie also complain about their bad air quality.

transportation is awesome! i have no problem travel alone. i feel like much better that my own living soil. feels like home.

and once a while you got to see some hongkong star making movie

singapok dictator smarter than our dictator. our dictator is a dumb fark

almost all 2nd generation seem to speak English fine to me.

Are you sure they are the 2nd generation and not the 3rd or 4th generation?

how the fvck am I suppose to know.
never heard people complaining about chinese in western countries not being able to use english.

hongkong is controlled by property tycoons.

they own you.

go read 'di4 chan3 ba4 quan4' 地产霸权

i got goosebumps when i saw the line chart of singapore.

Thats bcoz you dont travel. Stop hiding in your shell and travel once in a while.

not sure about this. there are insular chinese communities all over the place in the states where 2nd generation kids still can't speak intelligible english.

Why should malaysian chinese speaks cantonese?

not everyone is rich bro

people should speak whatever fvcking language that they want

Mostly can speak lar..
Just they cant speak Hindi..

HK with cheaper house

msia bangun la....tengokla jiran anda...bagi 20 tahun pun tak boleh kejar orang

20 tahan manyak negative oh cos kena buat manyak projek poket to kejar

He's a fuking idiot lol

Its ok to be poor. But its not ok to act like a smart aleck.

Mlaysia jelly singapore,usa & england...HK jelly singapore...indonesia jelly Malaysia...ini semua duniawi sahaja..sampai mati pun jelly on each other...later if malaysia maju other country sure jelly on us...so just sat in front of your pc and play games..no need to worry or jelly on anything...

HK style with cheaper house

style = good food, transportation, entertainment, tourist

Actually ini kesalahan ASTRO and TVB.
Mostly Cantonese shows. In Chinese Channels.
So many type of dialects why must be Cantonese...

Don't get me wrong but PRC > Cantonese.
Since Simplify Chinese

Not sure, most of my indians friends who takes Tamil Classes, doesn't know anything about their own Mothertongue.
All SK students.

Just observe those HK establishment opening their outlet in Malaysia. They insist their staff to speak Cantonese. This happens in Shenzen too. Even Japanese and Korean dont do this kind of staff when opening their outlet in foreign land.

Example of their HK outlets? Besides Tong Pak Fu, I don't know any HK shops.

U pigi migrate bangkok or jakarta see can tok kok or not

Even more singporean are forced to live at malaysia nowadays haha

buthurt sangat ke bang...??

more authentic mah

Redbox, Neway, Kim Gary etc just to name a few.

I agree if its just the greeting part. But to force their staff and customer to speak their dialect is an insult.

Will you accept if a japanese restaurant in malaysia start insisting their staff to ony converse in japanese to their customer? It just doesnt sounds right

If they want to sure, it's their own lost if customers stop going to their restaurants because they can't communicate.