Loss does not happen overnight. This is true when you lose a person and when you lose a city. This perhaps may be the most unbearable part about losing: a disease slowly erodes a healthy body; lingering resentments gradually corrodes a relationship; and cracks in institutional cornerstone disintegrates a city day by day.

The process of loss may take a long time. Except for specific dramatic moments that may perhaps be able to arouse some strong emotions and multilayer perceptions reminding you that you are still a living person capable of laughter and tears, most of the time, the days are quite ordinary. In fact, so dull and plain as though nothing seems to have changed. The sun continues to rise every morning and people continue to work day in day out. There will not be any farewell ceremonies. Between the usual and the unusual, mourning seems melodramatic and inappropriate, saved for the psychologists awaiting patients in the tree holes. Nevertheless, you do know that it is happening, a little bit of loss here and there, every day. The paradox of the gradual sense of losing is that, only then, do you truly realize and appreciate that you once owned it.

Yes, I am talking about the city of Hong Kong. Beijing could not care less about destroying the cornerstone of the Basic Law and directly established the Hong Kong version of the national security law. The Hong Kong government could not care less about its own past dignified propaganda about “separation of powers,” and declared with certainty that Hong Kong has never had a separation of powers. In an attempt to obscure the serious negligence of their abandonment of duties that had led to a complete reversal of the situation, the Hong Kong Police Force distorted the Yuen Long Jul. 21st incident (7.21), where triads had indiscriminately attacked citizens and the police were absent for a prolonged amount of time, as two groups of dissidents fighting each other. Under political pressure, publishers of secondary school textbooks undergo voluntary consultations after which studying materials are comprehensively reviewed, modified and self-censored. Senior executive levels of key media organizations experienced a large turnover. Trials, sentencing, escapes and arrests have been happening every day from last year to the present. The befall of autocracy, there will always be those like machines who will push the script forward.

But what really cut the cord is the disappearance of dark places in the obscured corners outside of the scripts of the bright areas. The vanishing of “you don’t know what went missing.”

Since May, in the corners of newspapers among the intertwined extensive reports on politics and the pandemic, there has been news such as at least four experts have quit the Department of Microbiology of the University of Hong Kong where some have left Hong Kong and some have been transferred to work in hospitals; Joseph Sung, former Chinese University president will be joining the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore as dean of its medical school; Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK suspended its satirical TV program “Headliner”; Poon Siu To, a seven-year veteran host of Commercial Radio Hong Kong’s program “On a Clear Day” left his job in a low-key manner; The chief economist of a China-funded bank in Hong Kong was asked to resign...

These are the movements of high-profile public figures who are worthy enough to be in the newspapers and on the news. There are many more departures of professionals from all walks of life, especially knowledge workers and creative professionals, who constitute the backbone of Hong Kong’s society. The news of their leaving is quietly spread among the circle of friends. No one wants to openly talk about it, but it is on everyone’s mind:

A university medical professor and project director left Hong Kong and went to Taiwan; a senior professor in the journalism and communication department of a university left Hong Kong and went to Singapore; a young and promising scholar in the political science department of a university left Hong Kong and went to Singapore; visiting scholars from a certain institution could not obtain a travel visa so gave up the plan to come to Hong Kong; an international media makes a substantial move to relocate its regional headquarter from Hong Kong to other parts of Asia; a writer, an artist, a well-known cultural person, a creative worker, a publisher … one by one leaves for Taiwan.

Hong Kong became how it is because of the causality of the history of the 20th century. Since the late Qing dynasty, in its historical fractionalization process, the revolutionary “China” set aside disputes and halted the pace, creating this unique piece of land between the great powers of the West and China. The reason why Hong Kong has become Hong Kong is that such a distinctive history and free space have created generations of Hong Kong people who have established themselves with professionalism beyond their national identity. The foundation of Hong Kong truly begins to rock when the city’s extraordinary status is returned to one country and when the outflow of its talents becomes irreversible.

Needless to say, “Reserve the land without the people” is a savage and stupid ruling logic. However, even if it is based on “national interest” and the logic of “conquering” Hong Kong even if it involves “ethnic cleansing,” can it succeed in the world in 2020? In fact, we have seen the national security law chased away Hong Kong elites and the US sanctions on the city have gradually driven away Western elites. Furthermore, the implementation of global taxation by China as a result of the pandemic and economic downturn this year has also made it difficult for mainland elites to remain in Hong Kong.

Losing Hong Kong, this huge political price will have to be paid for by someone. I am just afraid the burden will be borne by the next one to two generations.

(Annie Jieping Zhang, Founder & CEO at Matters Lab)

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