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This is the Bloomberg Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Doug Krisner. You can join Brian Curtis and myself for the stories, making news and moving markets in the APAC region. You can subscribe to the show anywhere you get your podcast and always on Bloomberg Radio, the Bloomberg Terminal, and the Bloomberg Business app.
Well, today marks the twenty seventh year of Hong Kong being handed over to China. And joining us now in our studios is Emily Lao, who is a Hong Kong Democratic Party member, a former chair of the Democratic Party and a former legislator here in Hong Kong, serving for some twenty five years or so, joining us in our studios to talk a little bit more about what is establishment day. Emily, What does establishment day mean to you at this point in time?
Well, I feel very sad and distressed because many of my friends and party members are languishing in prison, some are waiting for a sentence. The trial has gone on for a long long time. They've been locked up for over three years, and of course civil society in Hong Kong has more or less collapsed in a sense that many media outlets have closed down, journalists are either in prison or have fled overseas, or are not willing to do the job anymore. And my party is just surviving.
We were not allowed to take part in the district council election last year. We could not get permit to do fundraising by selling refel tickets, and we can't even have banquets for members and friends. And of course both my members are in prison. And other parties some have closed down, and there are no demonstrations, no marchers, no public assembly anymore.
That was what Hong Kong was once famous for. If you go and look at.
The Lonely Planet, this guide for tourists, they urge people to come to Hong Kong, this tiny.
City, so vibrant, so safe, so free.
Many demonstrations every day, all peaceful and orderly, even musical, but no more.
Very sad.
So the tipping point seems to have been twenty nineteen when Beijing proposed the Extradition Bill, right, and then we got the National Security Law, which obviously now sits above Hong Kong's basic law. Do you think it can get much worse than what we're seeing right now?
Of course it's possible. If you look around the world.
I mean, many people are in cuations which are much much worse off than us, and people are being killed, their bombs exploding everywhere, people are giving locktop, there's femine, there's genocide. So I mean the list is very long, and if we look around us, we are not on the top of the list. I mean, look at Gaza, look at Ukraine, look at me and mah Cambodia, Sudan, Afghanistan. I mean the list is very long. But of course we don't want things to deteriorate. And I'm still here
sitting here. People kept asking me why I haven't been arrested. Well, I just think that we want to tell President Si Jinping, especially on this very important day, that the situation has calmed down. I do not support my party did not support what happened in two or one nine or the violence and all that on whatever side. But the situation has come down. We've got the National Security Law, We've got a basic law are to go twenty three legislation.
So the authorities here but especially those in Beijing must feel confident that you know, the situation is under control, and they can start giving the people, allowing the people to enjoy more freedoms, the freedoms that were enshrined in the Sign of British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law, and the freedoms that we've enjoyed for many years after nineteen seven.
Certainly you mentioned the loss of civil society and there's no political opposition. You mentioned that a couple of other considerations. Freedom of the press, for sure, that has diminished, and also the rule of law and some of the comments made by Lord Sumption and some of the other judges that resign from the Court of Final Appeal are troubling. Do you think that that companies' businesses will start to rethink plans to be here in Hong Kong because of that.
Well, I'm not an expert on what these companies think, but I've spoken to people and they would like to have the rule of law. And when the Financial Secretary Poor Chan, when he traveled to America, to Europe and other places to sell Hong Kong to try to attract investors to come to Hong Kong, the first thing he talked about was the rule of law. He knows that that's very much on the mind of these money people. And then the first thing he said is, oh, look
at us. We are the only place on earth which has foreign judges sitting on our Court of Final Appeal, and the Court of Final Appeal can find the government wrong. We have been defeated in the court, so you see they are so independent. Well, I hope that it's true, and I hope that my people, my friends languishing in prison and their relatives and friends will agree. And of course I hope the Hong Kong people and the judges
local and foreign, will also agree with mister Chan. And if that's the case, then of course we will see more foreign business people or people, tourists, students, all of them coming to Hong Kong. But now I don't think we are seeing that many.
Obviously, you are still there, Emily. You mentioned a moment ago that many people have asked you why there has been some brain drained. There have been a number of people who have left. I mean, can you describe what that's looked like from your perspective.
Well, it's very very sad, and I saw some report recently about the number of Hong Kong people in the UK. This is mainly because of their Prime Minister Boris Johnson's and the Parliament's decision to have this be an old scheme which allow people who hold the British National Overseas Passport or that identity to go to the UK to live for five years and then they can on the sixth year they can begin to app life for British citizenship.
So that makes it much easier for people to go there, and the reports that we're talking about two hundred thousand or more people who have gone there, but many have also gone to Canada and even Australia because they have made the immigration thing much easier for Hong Kong young people and many of the people who.
Have left educated people.
They have money, and they are the backbone of the economy. They are the middle class people, and they are professionals, very well educated. So just imagine if a society suddenly loses so many of these people. That's why the government has schemes to attract talents from overseas and mainland China, but.
It will take a very long time.
To attract the right people the right education, and so it's not easy at all.
Emily, I'm curious about the few mature in your thoughts of it and whether or not Hong Kong can bounce back. You know, we always said, don't ever bet against Hong Kong because it showed over fifty sixty seventy years the ability to reinvent itself. Is that sort of spirit still there in your mind? Or is Hong Kong being hauled out? No?
I don't think the game is over, although some people do think so and they have left, and even those who are here they feel very, very distressed and they are quite unhappy with the situation. Well, I think the most important thing apart from Hong Kong people having the stamina, having the determination to make it work. But all along, all these years, the major factor that would make Hong Kong one country, to a system and all these things
prosper is on the part of Beijing. It's self censorship by the central government, and they exercise quite a bit since from nineteen ninety seven, for quite a number of years, they left Hong Kong alone. Well, maybe they trusted the government then and they really did so. I hope Ci Jinping Presidentcy Jimping now realized that things have settled down.
I know their top concern is national security, and I hope they will come to realize that Hong Kong no longer poses a threat to national security, and I hope we will be.
Given a chance.
I think at the same time, Beijing is very concerned about economic growth, and Brian was making the point earlier in the program about perhaps the recognition that Hong Kong is very much a part still of China's growth story. Do you think Beijing is aware of that at all?
Well, I would like to think so, but I've met people, you know, who kept telling me that, well, that's no longer or hasn't maybe has never been Beijing's top concern. Their top concern now is national security. So if they feel that it's under threat, anything else can be sacrificed.
And I think it would be a big shame for Beijing to say, Okay, we'll let Hong Kong go, because Hong Kong has prospered for so long, and Hong Kong has, you know, contributed to the country's development, and Hong Kong people and many Chinese people, mainland Chinese, rich educated people, they like to come here with their children, they like to go to our schools. Of course, some use this as a stepping stone to go overseas, but they like
it here. So I hope the people in Beijing and other people in the country would recognize that it would be a great pity to just kill off Hong Kong.
On the practical side, aside from allowing more freedoms, what would you like to see, what sort of policy would you like to see from Beijing to help stimulate Hong Kong.
Well, to get its mojo back.
Well, apart from all these things about stimulating the economy, which some people think, you know they're not working that well because you see many empty restaurants and vacant shops because many people have gone north to shop.
To eat and all that.
But what we need as a civilized society is prurarity diversity. Not that I'm saying, oh, they should allow the Democratic Party to take part in elections, of course they should, but they should allow others to take part in elections, to show tolerance that Hong Kong is a place that people with different views can coexist peacefully, and that's what we did in the past. It's not as if I'm
asking for something from the moon. So this is important so that business people, professional people, they understand that this is a place that tolerate difference of opinion be respected, you will not be arrested, and you will not be thrown into prison.
So important. Emily, thanks so much for coming in. We enjoyed the chat. Emily Lao, who was a former chairperson of the Democratic Party, and I would have to say probably one of the three or four most influential legislators over the past twenty five thirty years, certainly that I've been here.
This has been the Bloomberg Daybreak Asia podcast, bringing you the stories making news and moving markets in the Asia Pacific. Visit the Bloomberg Podcast channel on YouTube to get more episodes of this and other shows from Bloomberg. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen, and always on Bloomberg Radio, the Bloomberg Terminal, and the Bloomberg Business app.