Hong Kong’s hybrid system combined material wealth with the worst of political representation

Evidence

The people of Hong Kong had neither the network of communist officials that mainlanders have, nor did they have anything resembling Western democracy. Objectively speaking, the Special Administrative Region is materially privileged; it is much richer than the mainland and the other countries in the region. But from the standpoint of meaningful representation, “One Country, Two Systems” was the worst of both worlds. Even though the mega-rich “tycoons” (elsewhere they might be called “oligarchs”) continued to do very well, Hong Kong became less and less important for the Chinese economy overall. By 2014, Hong Kong now represented less than 3 percent of the total Chinese GDP, and the city itself had become more and more unaffordable for locals. Confidence in One Country, Two Systems had crashed, from 78 percent in 2008 to 37 percent in September 2014. The march of progress had stalled for Hong Kongers, both politically and economically. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 574

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the book’s pattern of leaderless, materially-privileged but politically-blocked middle classes — same shape as Brazil, Egypt, Chile erupting. — connects to: Hong Kong’s legislature reserved half its seats for corporate interest groups under British rule — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 573

Broader Connections

• Hong Kong’s legislature reserved half its seats for corporate interest groups under British rule #exemplifies (0.92) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 573