The Fall of Hong Kong
There was a time when Hong Kong was the brightest light in Asia, perhaps the world. A neon jungle with streets paved with ambition. The clang of the trams, wail of distant ferries, and hustle of millions of entrepreneurs harmonised into that hum of a city that never slept. You could smell it - the scent of roasted duck, the salt of the South China Sea, the sweat of a thousand bankers and hustlers trying to carve out their piece of paradise. It was a city that made you believe in opportunity, in capitalism, in the idea that tomorrow you two could live the dream.
But now? Now my friends say the glow has dimmed.
The old red taxis, like blood cells through the city’s veins, seem tired - coughing black smoke as they idle in traffic. The Star Ferry, a living relic of a past that felt like it would last forever, rusts at the edges, its paint flaking, its decks emptier than they should be. The alleyways in Central, once brimming with drunken laughter and the scent of frying garlic, are quieter now, a city that is far from dead, but isn’t quite alive either.
When Hong Kong was returned to China, it was a golden treasure from the British. An economic powerhouse that ran circles around the Mainland, a bridge between the West and the East, a ambitious city that courted the best. Reunification was on fragile terms, “one country, two systems”, an uneasy equilibrium for an economy bigger than it had any right to be. In 1997, Hong Kong was responsible for approximately 18.4% of mainland China’s GDP. By 2021, this figure had declined to about 2.1% - no longer the jewel in the east.
But Beijing has never loved things it can’t control. The rise of Shenzhen, Guangzhou the tech meccas of the greater bay area, has pulled attention away from the harbour city. And then there’s Singapore - a hungry rival eager to steal the banks, the funds, the investors, the dream. You see these corporations care about two things, low taxes and stability - it’s getting harder to compete on the latter, especially as the Chinese government is encouraging closer legal harmony with its special economic experiment.
COVID didn’t just cripple Hong Kong—it shattered its spirit. The city that once boasted the busiest airport in the world turned into an empty husk, its streets silenced, its people trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare of testing centres and quarantine hotels. While most of the world reopened in late 2021 and early 2022, Hong Kong maintained some of the harshest border restrictions until well into 2023. Travellers faced mandatory quarantines of up to 21 days in government hotels, When the world moved on, Hong Kong hesitated. And in that hesitation, businesses fled, expats left. And for the first time, the city felt fragile.
While other developed economies had embraced a living with COVID strategy, Hong Kong clung to a zero-COVID approach until the fifth Omicron wave overwhelmed hospitals. With distrust in government messaging, and low vaccination rates among the elderly creating the perfect mix for one of the highest COVID death rates in the world at its peak. Body bags were left next to living patients in overwhelmed hospitals.
But I am optimistic for Hong Kong, perhaps the best city in the world to be young.
Where else could you wake up on a Thursday morning, hungover from a Wednesday night that started at Happy Valley, and ended at a club in Wan Chai at 5am. Where can you ride a packed MTR to a high-rise office, make more money than you probably deserved, then by sundown, be on a rooftop in LKF, staring at a skyline that felt invincible? Where else could you work a 12-hour day and still find yourself climbing a mountain at in the evening.
Hong Kong was a paradox—a concrete jungle surrounded by beaches and mountains, a city that made you work like a dog and party like a god - a balance and challenge to make you yearn for more. There was a rhythm to it, an unspoken promise that as long as you could keep up, the city would take care of you. And it did.
I don’t know if Hong Kong will ever return to what it was. Maybe it can’t. Maybe the politics have irreversible changed, and the days of Hong Kong as the centre of the universe are over. But I do know, that even as it is, as a tired shadow of its former glory - it’s still one of the greatest cities in the world.