My Take | One country, two systems healthier than ever
- To decide whether our constitutional arrangement is still intact, you need to look at the system in its totality, not just particular aspects of it
Critics, both foreign and domestic, like to claim that the old Hong Kong or the “real” Hong Kong is dead.
Usually, they mean local democracy is being undermined. But since real democratisation started only after the 1997 handover of sovereignty, the current situation can more accurately be described as a reversal to the old or colonial Hong Kong under the Brits.
Others claim that “one country, two systems” is dead. Again, they focus only on democratisation when this constitutional arrangement encompasses the entire economic, political, social and cultural aspects and practices of the city. As a friendly observer puts it to me in an email:
1. The border between the two sides remains fully intact.
2. We retain our own currency in Hong Kong.
3. Our interest rate, thanks to our currency peg to the US dollar, is decided in Washington.
4. Whether to pay out dividends to investors in two key Hong Kong banks – HSBC and Standard Chartered – has been decided by the regulatory authorities not in Beijing but in London.
