Letters | Let’s shape Hong Kong’s future by drawing strength from our history

Readers discuss Hong Kong’s unique heritage, talent scheme applicants, the Kowloon City renewal project, and how to respond to Europe’s China tariffs

Hong Kong society

Letters

Published: 11:30am, 30 Jun 2024

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Stephen Roach is right to have cast doubt over Hong Kong. But he is also irrelevant to the city’s future, against the rich tapestry of Hong Kong’s history.

Hong Kong has faced many challenges through the years, from the Japanese occupation and mass immigration during the Chinese civil war to the financial crises. Yet the city’s economy has thrived, with gross domestic product growing significantly between the 1970s and now.

Hong Kong has been a unique melting pot, blending Eastern and Western influences. Its entertainment, sports, hospitality and food industries have all gained global recognition, with figures like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan becoming household names and sporting events like the Hong Kong Sevens gaining renown.

But more critically, this city has been transformed by people who chose to build, not belittle. Individuals of Chinese heritage who were well-versed in Western ways, like my great-uncle, Sir Boshan Wei Yuk, who introduced novel banking practices as a comprador; my grandfather, who helped build critical infrastructure like Kai Tak airport by co-founding Hsin Chong, the construction firm; and my father, who returned from abroad to build wealth management practices in Hong Kong and across Asia.

While Roach may be right that Hong Kong faces an uncertain future, it is the current Hongkongers who will shape the city’s future – the people who stand shoulder to shoulder to do what is right for Hong Kong, on these shores and afar.

The future can be greater yet if Hongkongers choose to address the city’s most urgent issues. We have the responsibility and agency to shape the city’s future, regardless of the detractors throwing sticks and stones from outside the tent.

We need to be courageous enough to know our city’s heritage, leverage it and chart an as-yet-undiscovered and unique path forward.

Tak Lo, Pak Shek Kok

Carefully vet talent scheme applicants

Late in 2022, Hong Kong introduced and enhanced measures to entice talent to come to the city. As of May this year, as many as 300,000 applications have been received for the government’s various talent schemes, and 190,000 of them have been approved. Most of the incoming professionals are from the mainland.

While it is important to attract talent, it is also necessary to retain those who are genuinely qualified and contributing to the city. Recently, there has been concern over online guides that advise talent visa holders to extend their visas by becoming insurance agents or setting up shell companies.

Thus, it is not unreasonable to have a flicker of doubt about whether all the talent visa holders are filling positions across professions and solving the city’s manpower shortage.

As one official put it, if Hong Kong can attract 100,000 individuals on top of the 50,000 young people graduating from local universities every year, the city’s economy will be much boosted.

But it also means that talent scheme applications must be carefully vetted, and future job vacancies properly forecast. The incoming professionals should be here to help our economy, without squeezing local talent out of jobs – even though some might say a little competition won’t hurt our young graduates.

Randy Lee, Ma On Shan

‘Little Thailand’ mustn’t lose its character

I refer to the report, “Half of shops affected by renewal scheme in Hong Kong’s ‘Little Thailand’ aim to stay in area” (June 16).

In the early 20th century, Chiu Chow people migrated to Thailand and married Thais. In the 1970s, many Thai-Chinese families came to Hong Kong and settled in Kowloon City, with a large Chiu Chow population in the infamous Kowloon Walled City.

While urban renewal schemes like the Kowloon City project seek to rejuvenate an area and make it more attractive and liveable, heightening its appeal to residents and tourists, there is also a risk of unravelling the community fabric. The renewal scheme should ensure that heritage is conserved and seamlessly integrated into the rejuvenated district.

Nicole Leung, Kwai Chung

China should stand tall and fight tariffs with tariffs

I refer to “What the EU’s extra tariffs on China’s electric vehicles mean for carmakers in both markets” (June 20).

Both the European Union and the United States are imposing tariffs on Chinese electric cars and driving a huge discussion about whether the Chinese government should fight back in the same way.

For me, as a Chinese, the answer is absolutely clear: yes. This is because whenever I look back on the history of my motherland, I always lament the Northern Song and Qing dynasties, when the state was soft in the face of foreign invasion and domination, dragging out an ignoble existence and as a result, intensifying the arrogance of foreigners who might have believed that Chinese people are a timid lot.

The Chinese government should learn a lesson from the miserable history of the country, and assert Chinese dignity by imposing similar tariffs on foreign vehicles.

The electric car industry means a lot to the Chinese, and for the Chinese dream. We must not tolerant any kind of threat to our industrial development.

Fung Zhan Hong, Ho Man Tin

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