Some in Hong Kong Feel Frustrated, As Their City Is Losing to Mainland China

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"We do not treat visitors from Mainland China well. And, they lost interest in Hong Kong. Before, they used to come here, to admire our wealth. Now, most of them are avoiding this place. What we have, they have, too, and often better. If they travel, they rather go to Bangkok or Paris."

These days, the contrast between Xian, Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong is shocking. Mainland infrastructure is incomparably better. Public areas are vast, and cultural life much more advanced than that in a former British colony.

While the mainland Chinese cities have almost no extreme poverty (and by the end of 2020 will have zero), in Hong Kong, at least 20% are poor, and many simply cannot afford to live in their own city. Hong Kong is the most expensive place on earth. Just to park a car in could easily cost over US$700 per month, for just working hours. Tiny apartments cost over a million US dollars. Salaries in Hong Kong, however, are not higher than those in London, Paris or Tokyo.

The city is run by an extreme capitalist system, 'planned' by corrupt tycoons/developers. The obsolete British legal system here is clearly geared to protect the rich, not the majority. That was essentially why the "Extradition Bill" was proposed: to protect Hong Kong inhabitants from the unbridled, untouchable, as well as unelected de facto rulers.

But there is this 'deal', negotiated before Hong Kong was returned where it belongs, which is to China: "One country, two systems". It is an excellent contract for the turbo-capitalist magnates, and for the pro-Western "activists". And it is extremely bad one for the average people of Hong Kong. Therefore, after months of riots sponsored by the West, the Hong Kong administration scrambled the bill.

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Young hooligans know very little about their city. I talked to them, extensively, during their first anti-Beijing riots in 2014 (so-called "Umbrella Revolution").

Correctly, then and now they have been frustrated about the declining standards of living, about the difficulties to get well-paid jobs and find affordable housing. They told me that 'there is no future for them', and that 'their lives are going nowhere'.

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