This article is a pastiche of impressions gained from the author watching network news and comparing it to East Europe. Project Syndicate deserves better.



The US Heritage Foundation has awarded Hong Kong the prize for "economic freedom" 22 YEARS IN A ROW (look it up at heritage.org) because it presents a model neoliberal economy. This is how mainland China uses Hong Kong, as a financial conduit - there is no typical communist oppression. Moreover, mainland Chinese money has flooded into Hong Kong property, driving up prices while well-educated mainland Chinese have taken many of the better jobs. As a result, Deutsche Bank a few years ago found that about 15% of people in Hong Kong could afford a home that was not simply a matchbox. Many Hong Kong people can no longer compete for the jobs that would put them in that 15%. There is literally no future prospect in sight for these people.



As long as the problems in Hong Kong are examined in the context of the current and growing Cold War between the US and China, the people of Hong Kong will continue to suffer and no solution for the real problems will be found. Voting in Jimmy Lai or some other tycoon seeking a color revolution will not fix the economic problems. That Hong Kong problems are rarely accepted in Western press as the populism that they are is probably a result of racism.



At least one fact should get through the fog of racism and cold war fiction surrounding Hong Kong protests - ONLY ONE country wants to see Hong Kong prosperous, and that is China because it finds Hong Kong such a useful capital gathering center. New York and London compete with Hong Kong, and it is in both US and UK interest to see the (previously) well-oiled machine of Hong Kong collapse into a cloud of tear gas. Obviously, China is trying to salvage a working Hong Kong. Who knows what the West is trying to do with it.