The death of Hong Kong warning 2.0

By Chris Yeung —

“Say Hello Hong Kong,” a Hong Kong Government promotional video featuring Chief Executive John Lee posted on Youtube one year ago, has recorded a total of 33,000 views as of Friday (July 26).

A two-part video marking the second anniversary of Lee’s inauguration on July 1 got a combined total of about 23,000 views.

The total viewership of the two government videos aimed to tell good Hong Kong stories represents just a tiny fraction of the total clicks of a documentary that was posted on Youtube on Wednesday last week.

Headlined “The slow, quiet death of Hong Kong,” the 26-minute film recorded a total of 740,000 views as of Friday night Hong Kong time.

Posted by the Wendover Productions, the video started by depicting how Hong Kong was sharply different from the mainland, citing the city remains a “right-hand drive” place, unlike the rest of the country, and the high visa-free access of the Hong Kong SAR passport holders around the globe.

But it then went into length to document the seismic political changes in the city in the wake of the anti-extradition bill protests with a simple but plain verdict, “Hong Kong is just not what it once was.”

Wendover Productions says their work “is all about explaining how our world works,
with videos giving readers “a little better understanding of our world.”

Founded by a young Youtuber, it is unclear whether the Government has taken the edutainment channel seriously. In a sharp contrast with the swift rebuttal by the Government in response to previous reports by Western media that were deemed as “bad-mouthing” Hong Kong, there was no official response on the film as of Friday.

But judging from the number of views and responses to the film on the Youtube channel, the story of the ‘slow, quiet death of Hong Kong” has resonated among netizens in the city and around the world who still want to have a better understanding of what happened to the city.

This is despite the fact that the film contains no fresh revelations and secrets that could better explain why Hong Kong is “not what it once was.”

Similar bleak views on Hong Kong have caused a stir in the city once in a while. It was not long ago that American economist Stephen Roach became the subject of criticism by the Government and their supporters for an article he wrote that was entitled, “Hong Kong is over!”

Responses to the return of the provocative notion of “death of Hong Kong”, however, have been intriguingly quiet.

Flashed back to 1995, a cover story on the US Fortune magazine under the title “The death of Hong Kong” had forecast a bleak future of Hong Kong under communist China rule. Louis Kraar, the writer, wrote “the naked truth about Hong Kong’s future can be summed up in two words: It’s over.”

10 years after the handover, the magazine carried an article, saying “we are wrong.”

Changes that have unfolded since the 2019 social unrest have ironically proved there were some truths in Fortune’s predictions about Hong Kong, including “replacing elected legislators with compliant members, selecting cooperative judges, and appointing the chief executive.”

A re-read of the Fortune article and a run-through of the images and narration of the “slow, quiet death of Hong Kong” video with both straddling almost three decades adds more gloom and doom to the city.

With hindsight, the Fortune article had given a “wake-up” call to both Chinese and British governments for them to double their efforts to allay fears about the then imminent changeover of sovereignty.

Driven by a sense of crisis, both mainland and Hong Kong officials have intensified overseas visits and dialogue with foreign governments to explain the “one country, two systems” plan for Hong Kong.

Like the Fortune doom forecast, the warning of “the death of Hong Kong” 2.0 should be seen as a somber reminder of the risks and dangers of the demise of the all-important systems and values of the city. Whether it will be taken seriously is another matter.

This article was first published on Green Bean website.