After pressure from Chinese officials the bank supported the controversial security law. The choice between decisions in line with democratic traditions and economic interests was made painfully clear to Hong Kong’s expat business community in the case of HSBC bank. Recent surveys show the extent of an expatriate exodus from Hong Kong in the wake of the extension of Beijing’s security laws to the hitherto protected enclave under “one country-two systems”. London and all its dependents were painfully aware of this risk, as the high remain vote in the city showed at the 2016 Brexit referundum. The danger is already apparent, with services largely left out of the Brexit treaty even though they constitute about 80% of the total of the British economy and compromise a substantial proportion of British exports to continental Europe.Īny centre, including a financial one, needs the right environment to thrive and prosper. As observers predicted immediately after the conclusion of the Brexit treaty between the EU and the United Kingdom, the City of London will likely lose out as financial services choose to move locations of their business to preserve access to the European bloc. Both are losing this bridge function due to a nationalist takeover: Hong Kong into mainland China, London into Brexit Britain. More recently both functioned at a critical junction between the booming Chinese economy and the European Union on one side and the rest of the world on the other. Historically both cities were crucial nodes in the global network of the British Empire. There is a curious parallel between Hong Kong and London as financial centres in potential decline due to the recent loss of a unique position.
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