The Hong Kong authorities’ move to freeze the bank accounts of ex-lawmaker Ted Hui, who went into exile recently, as well as the accounts of his family, has caused widespread concern. People are worried that the government may use financial means to go against dissidents. The incident has also triggered a new wave of capital outflow from Hong Kong. Although Chief Executive Carrie Lam and police have made clarifications repeatedly, some witty source in the financial industry told me that “some of my clients seem to trust Ted Hui more even though he has a ‘track record’”. The source was referring to Lam’s recent claim that Hui “has a track record of telling lies”. He also said the damages to Hong Kong brought by the incident are far more serious than Beijing and the Hong Kong government could imagine. The source noted: “To maintain financial stability, the most important thing is confidence. This incident has shaken the confidence in Hong Kong’s financial system of many companies that previously still had a bit of confidence in the city.” The impact is absolutely profound.

The source also said the incident would not have been as “lethal” if the Hong Kong government had only frozen Hui’s accounts. “The problem is they also froze the accounts of his family but still haven’t been able to provide a proper reason why they did that.” Police and banks are in denial, but as a client of the source said: “ask her [Carrie Lam] to do a street poll to see how many people believe in what she said. I bet not one out of 10 people would.” According to the source, many well-off people have already moved their assets abroad. “People who are not that wealthy were previously hesitant about opening offshore accounts. Now they are trying their best to move their money outside Hong Kong. Some opt for online securities accounts abroad. The young ones go for cryptocurrency. Even if they only have HKD100,000 or HK$80,000, they move whatever they have to elsewhere.”

The source said that in order to maintain Hong Kong’s status as a financial hub, offering people opportunities to make money is not enough but it also needs to make sure people have confidence in it. “Once people’s confidence in it is shaken, no amount of money can help, as people realize the government can freeze your money and even your family’s money any time. It doesn’t matter how much money people can make here.” He described the incident as “a crack in a dam”. “This crack would be the root cause of the dam’s collapse one day.”

Click here for Chinese version

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