Asia’s world city: the old Hong Kong brand is no more. Perhaps we should try Asia’s Greater Bay Area city?

The national security law, which the government used to raid a media outlet and arrest its owner, has left the Hong Kong brand in tatters
The now-dead extradition bill was a precursor to events that changed how the world sees the city

Michael Chugani

Published: 6:45am, 20 Aug 2020

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Rebranding is a tricky business. It involves changing public perception so that something that was good, then turned bad, is seen as good again. The Western perception of Hong Kong has turned so negative that no amount of rebranding can change that, at least in the foreseeable future.

The Hong Kong the world knew is gone. It was a brand built over many decades: Asia’s top financial centre with a thriving semi-democracy, a freewheeling media, fearless free speech and unhampered anti-government protests.

That brand was already fading after what many in the international community saw as heavy-handed police tactics to crush last year’s often violent anti-government protests. The national security law imposed by Beijing, which the government used to raid a media outlet and arrest its owner, has left the brand in tatters.

It doesn’t matter how many times Beijing and local leaders insist today’s Hong Kong is as it always was despite the new law. Images can be more powerful than words. The images of more than 200 police officers raiding the headquarters of Next Digital, the parent company of Apple Daily, shocked not only many in Hong Kong but also the Western world.

Television and social media footage of police using social distancing rules or the security law to warn or arrest people singing protest songs or holding blank sheets of paper in protest in shopping malls didn’t help. Much of the West no longer sees Hong Kong as a city with a high degree of autonomy.

It sees a Hong Kong where Beijing has reined in free speech and protests, disqualified opposition candidates, arrested activists, and instilled fear in the media with so many red lines that self-censorship is on the rise.

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Most reputable international public relations firms shunned the government’s tender for the rebranding of the city during last year’s protests. They have more reason to do so now.

It has become virtually impossible to remake Hong Kong into the global brand it was. How is that achievable when the United States has sanctioned the city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, the police commissioner and the justice secretary?

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When Hong Kong’s leader cannot go to the US, have any dealings with banks and businesses that have US connections, or even use credit cards issued by US firms, she belongs to the same small club as Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who have also been sanctioned by the US.

The US no longer treats Hong Kong as a separate customs territory, four other Western countries have suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong, Lam has resigned from her honorary fellowship at Cambridge University after Wolfson College moved to reconsider it, and local exports to the US will soon have to be labelled “Made in China”.

When the security law has changed so much, it’s surreal to say little has changed. Hong Kong needs to acknowledge that Lam’s now-dead extradition bill was a precursor to events that changed not only how Hongkongers see their city but how the world sees it.

Outsiders see a Hong Kong with eroding freedoms. Rebranding won’t change that, which is why Hong Kong needs to find a new identity. Some in and outside government believe its future lies more with China than the world.

The city needs to forget former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa’s boast that Hong Kong is Asia’s world city. That boast was based partly on the assumption that the city would maintain freedom of expression. The US and others in the West no longer believe Hong Kong has that.

It was a stupid boast anyway, made more stupid now that the US has sanctioned Lam. Hong Kong didn’t gain global traction to play in the same league as New York or London, which was Tung’s aim.

Hong Kong will remain an important financial centre. Its unique, though eroding, status still makes it the gateway to China. But its global image is tarnished. It needs to rebrand itself, not as Asia’s world city but Asia’s Greater Bay Area city. That may gain traction.

Michael Chugani is a Hong Kong journalist and TV show host