I had an afternoon tea the other day with a young proprietary trader in his mid-30s, and chatted with him about his decision to leave Hong Kong for good which made after witnessing the deterioration of this city due to the enactment of the National Security Law (NSL) almost nine months ago. The conversation took place at a café mainly serving cakes in the International Financial Centre (IFC), the core area of Central. For those who are interested, there is always a long queue outside the café, which is just next to the Apple Store on the second floor.

Let’s call my young friend Joe here. He is ethnic Chinese, and his parents left Hong Kong a few years before the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. Joe was young then when the Tiananmen tragedy took place, but he learned more about what had happened when he was growing up as a teenager. Time went by quickly. He relocated to Hong Kong from one of the what we call Five Eyes today around 10 years ago. He was a fresh university graduate around the time the Lehman crisis broke out in 2008, and jobs were scarce. He bought a one-way ticket to Hong Kong, and first apprenticed as a research assistant at a renowned recruitment agency focusing on the finance sector. Lucky enough, he got a foot in the door of the financial services industry.

Joe has a bachelor’s degree in finance from a world-renowned university, not to Ivy League ranking yet. To make a long story short, as an associate portfolio manager managing a sizable portfolio for one of the medium-sized asset management firms with total asset close to USD1 billion under its management, he has been earning a decent income inclusive of salary and bonus by any standard, which has averaged USD400,000 per year over the last 5 years. Still a single guy with smart investment in one of the local residential apartments that he bought around six years ago, he has his net worth grow up substantially. He has recently sold his apartment, and netted a decent profit.

Joe has experienced Hong Kong, and over the past 10 years, has seen the good and bad of it. With a high compensation to start with, Joe has built a net worth of over USD2 million. He has recently quit his job, but what is next? Joe always gets excited about the story and adventure of Jim Rogers, the legendary trader who once worked for hedge fund titan George Soros. Jim Rogers left Soros Fund Management as a junior partner before 39, retired from fund management, and travelled the world by motorcycle. Joe might follow that path in a way.

If he moves back to his home town, which is not one of the big international cities that most of you might think of, he can spend one-fifth of his “windfall gain” from Hong Kong, or USD400,000, in buying a house in a suburb city, and live in comfortable and enjoyable semi-retirement at an early age. But there are still a wealth of possibilities for a young man in his mid-30s, especially someone with no family obligation yet. He is in no rush to look for a job, and he definitely wants to see the world more, and gain perspective.

The situation in Hong Kong has always been very fluid, and people do move around, and then move on. Joe hasn’t flown to other places since COVID-19 broke out last year, but he is quite determined to leave. He has his apartment sold already, and he rented it back from the new buyer for the next six months, and possibly another six months. Currently being locked down in Hong Kong, he visits as many places as possible in the city, meets up with and says good bye to some friends he has gotten acquainted with during irregular church activities at an English-speaking church on Hong Kong Island, while acting in the capacity of a “humble trader” managing his sizable personal-account trading portfolio.

A “country boy”, Joe was amazed by the energy of the Hong Kong people when he arrived in the city. He won’t consider himself an ignorant “banana” – an Asian growing up in an English-speaking country who is yellow on the outside, but yellowish-white on the inside. He reads news about Hong Kong a lot rather than just financial news from Bloomberg and CNBC, and understands the abrupt changes in the city over the last two years. He could recollect the vivid memory of the Umbrella Movement in 2014. Still young in his late twenties when the movement happened, he could relate to the student leaders of Hong Kong, and knew what they were fighting for. He even bought lunch boxes for the students who supported the democratic movement whenever he could during lunch hours. The peaceful social movement lasted for 79 days. And in 2019, the fight against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s intervention and annexation of Hong Kong was cross-generational, and this time Joe took the role of a bystander and silent supporter.

Joe understands what Hong Kongers have been demanding ̶ democracy and freedoms, which is universal across all nations. Sadly, up till now, a genuine “one country, two systems” has never existed, and Beijing has failed to make good on that promise. Beijing has already put the final nail in the coffin for Hong Kong’s freedoms. As a “banana”, Joe understands that a lot of Hong Kongers have given up on hopes for the city, and Beijing reneging its promises means Hong Kong’s conditions would experience a downward spiral. He sees Hong Kongers have lost hope, and quite realistically, the whole city has already entered a dark period of political persecution ̶ the core values of Hong Kong inlcuding freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of political thoughts, and independent judiciary are all gone in a few months.

As Joe is about to leave Hong Kong, he still doesn’t understand why Beijing wants to kill the city at such a huge cost, leaving people in this city with no alternatives. Joe would never have thought that the National Security Law (NSL) is just an excuse to suppress all voices. Just to refresh our memory, and for those who don’t follow Hong Kong news closely: during the anti-extradition bill and pro-democracy movement of 2019, more than 10,000 people were arrested, and now around 100 people, be they prominent business leaders, activists, students, politicians or professionals, are alleged to have broken the NSL. Most of them are locked up in detention centers before trial.

Joe has concluded this is the end of Hong Kong, as he knows it. He thinks that the June 4 Tiananmen Square vigil in Hong Kong will not happen again, so we have to say goodbye to all forms of gatherings and/or legal demonstrations. For those who want to drill deeper, what is troubling this city is the method of choosing the members of the Election Committee, whose function is to choose the next Hong Kong Chief Executive. Now every aspect of Hong Kong is carefully vetted in order to ensure that all core positions are taken on by “patriots”.

For those outsiders who have also called Hong Kong home over the years, the disappearance of the city’s dynamic spirit, the crackdown on freedoms and democracy in this financial hub, the potential confiscation of personal assets, arbitrary detention, shutdown of venues, and freezing of bank accounts have already made the once famed city a dwelling and business place below par. It is just surreal to see how much the city has fallen.

What will happen to Hong Kong next? Nobody knows, but a lot of people have sacrificed for the cause to defend what Hong Kong used to have: they got persecuted, suppressed or imprisoned. And for my young trader friend Joe, who has experienced Hong Kong, benefitted from the city, still considers himself an outsider, but knows well enough of this place, I hope he will remember the better side of Hong Kong: its magnificent mountains for hiking, its culture, history, dynamic and efficiency. And on a more serious note, I wish Joe would remember that Hong Kongers have been selfless, and have come forward fearlessly to defend their freedoms and rights, during the Umbrella Movement of 2014, and the fight for freedoms over the last two years. As a local and insider, I have nothing more to tell Joe about this city. He knows this city. In fact, we went hiking a few times during his last days here, and hence, he sees the thumbnail image of todays’ opinion piece. Joe wants to remain anonymous and not appear in the picture, but has promised to tell the Hong Kong story, the good and bad of it, wherever he goes next.

(Edward Chin (錢志健) runs a family office. Chin was formerly Country Head of a UK publicly listed hedge fund, the largest of its kind measured by asset under management. Outside the hedge funds space, Chin is Convenor of 2047 Hong Kong Monitor and a Senior Advisor of Reporters Without Borders (RSF, HK & Macau). Chin studied speech communication at the University of Minnesota, and received his MBA from the University of Toronto. Twitter: edwardckchin Youtube: Ed Chin Channel Facebook.com/edckchin Email: [email protected])

We invite you to join the conversation by submitting columns to our opinion section: [email protected]

Apple Daily reserves the right to refuse, abridge, alter or edit guest opinion columns for accuracy, length, clarity, and style, and the right to withdraw and withhold columns based on the discretion of our editorial page editors.

The opinions of the writers do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editorial board.

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play