Hong Kong has never been a normal place, nor a regular city. From what we understand prima facie, Hong Kong is the only true Cosmopolis, a “world-city”. It would be similar to what Venice, Genoa and perhaps even Massalia in history, yet also so different.

First and foremost, it is a port city without a vast strech of rural land supplying local produce, unlike historical port cities. It has created a truly cosmopolitan lifestyle, where an average Hong Kong person consumes imported products down to the most basic item, like Philippine banana, Brazilian chicken, Australian carrots, NZ maize, Japanese eggs and Taiwanese meatballs. Despite every single meal is cooked with ingredients across multiple countries, it’s not something extravangant. It’s just the basic lifestyle that we have used to for many decades. We also produce almost no significant local products except for just a few specialty productions.

Secondly, we should understand how Hong Kong has become the wealthy financial hub that we have today. To oversimplify things, Hong Kong was first the tour guide bringing the white people to explore Asia with business opportunities, having founded a bunch of banks in a safe place with acceptable security and relatively stable political climates, without the fear of military warlords. The managers were the financial elites of the modern world, alongside the colonial government established by the British. The business style was basically “Sir, this way” but for introducing investors into Asia and mainly China. Since every investor needed a forward base of operations in Asia with easy access to banking and financial services, it inevitably required some profitable asset types to be introduced to the HK market, so that investors would put down their coin here, as investment, and stage their entrance into other parts of Asia. Thus our second line of business was established – as a vault of wealth. The establishment of the Linked Exchange Rate to the USD has reinforced this idea that Hong Kong finally has become the vault to put down your wealth as a very available currency.

With these premises, it would only make sense that the bankers’ interests have vested in Hong Kong for such a long time. It would be naive to think that these interests would diminish after the handover of sovereignty.

The admission of China into the WTO in 2001 marked its entrance of the global trading scene. Hong Kong was no longer needed as the tour guide, yet it remained the gold vault for accessible USD. Real Estates, equity, with-profit insurance policies and financial derivatives are all fair game, and thus it explains the need of having the housing price remaining high. The control of Hong Kong remains in the financial interests of China, not to mention some other interests. And thus the conflicts between China and the western bankers are inevitable.

But is China related to the western bankers? It was the bankers’ idea to introduce China into the scene of global trades. Certain criticisms about western exploitations of cheap Chinese labour are actually true. It would seem likely that the first leaders of the Communist Party have at least worked very closely with these bankers, even more so that the founding fathers of the Communist Party of China worked very closely with some of the prestigious families of the bankers back in its infancy.

It would seem like the current office of the Communist Party has a bit of conflicts with these bankers. The conflicts are never actually between 2 sovereigns, but between 2 closed cabinets representing different interests within the ruling elites of the bankers.

These bankers are usually referred to with many different names. We need not reiterate.

Where does Hong Kong stand? Hong Kong has been a shared asset across multiple cabinets of interests. The main belligerants of this current conflicts are spearheaded by Trump and Xi. Trump represents the interests of some other obscured cabinets of interests, while Xi represents another, perhaps even his own. There will be some parties who are not even in conflicts between them. If the belligerant parties have trashed Hong Kong into a wasteland, these non-belligerant parties will be enraged as well. And thus, in this tug of war, the conflicts are even deeper than what we can imagine, and no one, including yours truly, can fully fathom the depth of it.

Hong Kong shall remain special in the changes to come. In the Grand Design, Hong Kong will serve its unique purposes designed by the new order of things.

Brace yourselves, changes are coming.