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City Beat | What does Hong Kong’s defiantly buoyant property market tell us – and Beijing?
- Recently passed bill ensuring only ‘patriots’ govern Hong Kong effectively signals an end to big business’ influence in shaping government policies
- But that does not mean a quick fix for the city’s many deep-rooted livelihood issues, in particular Hong Kong’s notorious housing problem
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“I do hope the developers and big landlords in town realise clearly enough that the good old days for them are gone,” a former official recently told me.
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He was sharing his latest observations about Hong Kong’s political scene, and referring to the dwindling influence of this elite group.
With political winds blowing in a different direction, the watershed moment came last week when the Legislative Council passed a bill on a new legal framework to ensure that only “patriots” would be allowed to run the city.
This effectively signals an end to big business’ influence in shaping government policies, even in Beijing’s choice of the city’s leaders. The nation’s and Hong Kong’s interests overall will now prevail.
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However, it doesn’t mean a quick fix for the many deep-rooted livelihood issues, in particular Hong Kong’s notorious housing problem. The reason is simple: inelastic demand for housing outpaces supply.
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