No one can deny, the current Hong Kong government has lost its ability to govern. Carrie Lam has turned Hong Kong into a ruin; she is incapable of resigning nor to find a successor. Her vampire-like administration has to lead Hong Kong in the next few years to face a global situation that is on the verge of World War III. I don’t expect us to be able to avoid the catastrophe but hope that after the worst, the good will come.

In the past 20 years, the CCP has profited from joining the World Trade Organization (WTO); its economic development has advanced like a big country but its society is still like a third world one. Its government officials are all keen to send their family members abroad; in terms of politics and trade, stealing, tricking, robbing, lying...the CCP has done it all. The launching of the Thousand Talents Plan in the U.S. is basically thieving. It is not news that it invited high-tech companies to open factories in China to steal their technology; One Belt One Road initiative on paper is helping other countries' development but is actually another way of colonization; it uses Extradition Bill and national security law as an excuse to take full control of Hong Kong. Actually none of these is new, but everyone had goodwill and assumed the CCP would learn and finally get back onto the right track. But time flew by and it is only getting worse. Eventually, people’s opinions started to change and the China Hawks slowly took shape. Trump only plays the role of the child in the Emperor’s New Clothes who called out the truth that everyone knows but no one wants to admit. The domino has been built for years and all Trump did was give it a little push. Whether he will be re-elected or not, there is already no way back from this situation.

Two, three years ago, I have already said the government must strongly emphasize “Hong Kong Is Not China,” and now it is too late. The Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) invested by Google and Facebook, has already decided the cable would not be connected to Hong Kong; in the future you might see our IT peers traveling to the Philippines to be foreign workers and renting the houses of your former domestic helpers. But we deserve this tragic end, as since the rise of the Four Asian Dragons 40 years ago, Hong Kong is the only “dragon” that has not developed any high-tech industry. Both South Korea and Taiwan have their own international brands, and many foreign technology companies operate or even set up their Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore; Hong Kong is always only the “business support” for Shenzhen; Tung Chee-hwa’s “Digital Cyberport” doesn’t look very “digital,” many international big enterprises which had planned to build their data center in Hong Kong have all backed out because of political reasons.

As the world has witnessed some time ago, hundreds-strong police manpower was used to raid and search the Apple Daily office. How would anyone want to put their server in Hong Kong? The moment the segmentation between Hong Kong and China is gone is the moment Hong Kong loses its place as an international city. However, government officials are still time and time again tying Hong Kong with China together, as if they have not done enough damages already. The advantage of Hong Kong has always been being part of international society and different from China. The biggest mistake the government has made in these 20 years is that they do not understand it is the ambiguity of who rules Hong Kong that makes it beautiful, and has, instead, lifted the veil to show how ugly Hong Kong has become.

Looking at the figures of 2019, U.S. total trade deficit was nearly US$600 billion, over half of which was with China. It was actually expected as the world’s factory, but the U.S. knew it deep down, the deficit came from the U.S. only being able to import but not export, because the banks, media, publications and internet of the 1.4 billion people are all private playgrounds of the CCP; the other industries such as cars, pharmaceutical, farm products are so strict and hard to break into. One can only tolerate for so long and after having waited for 20 years and the market with 1.4 billion people is still nowhere to be seen, the U.S. has run out of patience and the CCP no longer has the time and ability to open the market. As a result, the U.S. and China must, as Trump said, decoupling. Many pro-China U.S. officials are gone by now and Trump’s role is only to speed up the process. I can foresee that the U.S. will rebuild the whole industrial chain as if China does not exist. Although Trump has invited the factories to return to the U.S., they are more likely to be relocated to India. It doesn’t matter, as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have their branches there for years already. With the U.S. having started the trend, other European countries will also go with the flow and follow the decoupling strategy.

Hong Kong is a tiny place so should not even think about saving the CCP. Besides China and Hong Kong do not need each other to survive, so Hong Kong has more reason to condemn the bad boy behaviors of the CCP to the international society, and at the same time plan how to save itself. There are many Hong Kong talents within the technology industry that complement those in the neighboring areas. I believe it is also the same within other industries. But how come we have never looked for another place outside China as Plan B? The late Cao Renchao, Hong Kong’s “stock god” famously said, “seize the opportunity while you have the wisdom.” Now that the U.S.-China decoupling is bound to happen, to pick the right side would be Hong Kong’s way of survival. Reluctantly siding with the CCP would only put Hong Kong into the grave. Being a puppet of China has earned Hong Kong a lot of money in the past, such as “no.8” Hong Kong Telecom, which used to be a blue-chip stock with stable interests; but the role of China as the world’s factory has started changing, if we don’t make our stance clear, decouple with the CCP and develop a Plan B business model, we will end up by taking a bloody lesson “no.8” and going down like it.

It is less than two months until the U.S. presidential election. If Trump gets re-elected, then he would be completing the decoupling policy; if not, I don’t think a crazy man like him would care what the next government would do. They would probably not start a war, but might quickly build a diplomatic relationship with Taiwan. Is Hong Kong ready to face the uproar?

(Tam Sai Wah, member of Frontline Tech Workers.)

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