Karishma Vaswani - ‘I don’t have any hope for my future in Hong Kong’

An interesting report from the BBC about China. If you read between the lines you will see that it is the Hong Kong's capitalist system itself that has brought so much misery to the people of Hong Kong. But the report does blame the Chinese government, as you would expect from the BBC, by saying that it hasn't done enough to counter the influence of big business and the wealthy elite in Hong Kong.

Yep, it's China's fault for keeping to the agreement of One Country, Two Systems, exactly what the Hong Kong people said they wanted, and exactly what the Western world wanted too.

Everyone in China has their own home and debt is low. The Hong Kong government proposed to build a home for everyone, but 51% of the residents in Hong Kong own their own home, so they got together and stopped the council from building new properties because they thought it would lower house prices. Now, one of the reasons the young people of Hong Kong are rioting is because houses are too expensive, and this is said to be the Chinese government's fault, for some reason.

Hong Kong was once the West's gate-way to China and the East, but other Chinese cities are closer to production and have taken over. Didn't anyone ever tell the pro-capitalist, pro-western HK students this is how capitalism works, and that most western economists would tell them to leave their friends and families behind and go to find work where the jobs are. Capitalism is tough!

Remember BBC, One Country, Two Systems.

Lack of political will

Hong Kong has one of the lowest tax rates in the world , which has helped it become a major financial hub.

Those low tax rates though have meant that the government has had to find other ways to fund education, housing and health programmes.

Traditionally it has relied on revenue from land sales to developers for commercial projects - but that means there's little incentive for the government to free up land for public housing.

The other issue is the complicated makeup of Hong Kong's legislative council, the 70-member body that votes on how public money should be spent. It's dominated by business groups who have typically voted in their own interests.

Hong Kong was a city built for business. But while businesses thrived, others were left out.

A lack of government planning has contributed to the highest inequality rate in Hong Kong in 45 years.

The government now recognises it needs to fix things - but it may be too little, too late.

The BBC 

Karishma Vaswani - ‘I don’t have any hope for my future in Hong Kong’