My, what a year it’s been. I’ve been around for a very long time and yet I can’t think of a year that has been worse. So, in the fervent hope that next year will be better, I’m trying my best to grasp at straws and wonder what could happen in the next twelve months that will be not so bad.

Frankly, however, the prediction business has become infinitely more perilous in recent times. Indeed I think it can safely be said that anyone who claims to have predicted the events of 2020 is either a liar or fantasist. Even predicting what’s going to happen next week seems over ambitious in current circumstances.

Obviously, the big hope is that the pandemic has peaked and that with the arrival of proven vaccines, it will come under control. But here in Hong Kong we live under a regime that has ruthlessly sought to politicize this medical crisis and even when an end is in sight is prepared to sacrifice citizen’s health in favor of kowtowing to the masters in Beijing.

Hong Kongers who lack the means to do otherwise will have to accept a Mainland produced vaccine– still awaiting test approval – from a company that has a track record of bribing officials to facilitate the approval process. Let’s see how many of the hypocrites who wear their allegiance to the PRC(People’s Republic of China) on their sleeves will be prepared to roll up their shirts and get a jab from this source.

The good news however is that yet again the fine people of Hong Kong have proved their good sense and discipline which has prevented a far worse spread of the coronavirus and will almost certainly achieve the same result in future pandemics.

Secondly, as the white terror spreads with alarming velocity around Hong Kong there is no reason to believe that it has dislodged the spirit of liberty which stubbornly lingers among the people. The more that the Beijing echo chamber trumps its success in putting down the uprising, the more they inadvertently reveal their insecurity and concern over the failure to extinguish the simmering fires of freedom.

Thirdly, what lingers from the end of the period of street protests is the enormous sense of solidarity and self-help among Hong Kongers. Those who have been incarcerated have not been forgotten, those who are targeted for reprisals know that others willingly help them and by the day people have incorporated acts of defiance into their daily lives by supporting the yellow economic circles, by coming up with ever inventive ways of expressing the themes of protest and, most importantly, by refusing to give up.

Fourthly, one of the few things that can be confidently predicted is that as the regime settles into a new mood of hubris, reminiscent of its stance following the defeat of the Umbrella Movement, it will be more rash in making mistakes, the squabbling among members of the elite will intensify and the grounds will be laid for a resurgence of protest.

What cannot be ignored is that 2021 will be a year of intense economic hardship for people thrown out of work or forced to take unpaid leave as businesses either close down or totter on the brink of collapse. The government has ‘proudly’ declared that there will be no more than minimal help for the victims.

Nor can it be overlooked that as the virus became the number one health priority many potentially lifesaving types of routine medical care were put on hold. It is not exaggeration to say that the deathly toll of the virus – even if it is not acknowledged- will accelerate as the consequences of this neglect make their way through the coming period.

The old saying of “prepare for the worst, hope for the best” is probably as much as we can do. Only the most irredeemable pessimist will believe that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Yet, although it may seem odd to say this but we are lucky to be living in Hong Kong where the Lion Rock spirit of overcoming adversity refuses to die and no matter how awful the government, the people will, eventually, prevail.

(Stephen Vines is a Hong Kong-based journalist, writer and broadcaster and runs companies in the food sector. He was the founding editor of ‘Eastern Express’ and founding publisher of ‘Spike’. In London he was an editor at The Observer and in Asia has worked for international publications including, the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, BBC, Asia Times and The Independent and, during Hong Kong’s 2019/20 protests, for the Sunday Times. He hosts a weekly television current affairs programme: The Pulse”

Vines’ latest book Defying the Dragon – Hong Kong and the world’s largest dictatorship, will be published early next year by Hurst Publishing. He is the author of several books, including: Hong Kong: China’s New Colony, The Years of Living Dangerously - Asia from Crisis to the New Millennium, Market Panic and Food Gurus.)

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