The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government’s sharp rebuttal to Stephen Roach’s “Hong Kong is over” claims underscore a recurring theme: Western prognostications about the city’s decline have consistently failed to materialize.
Roach, former Morgan Stanley strategist, recently walked back his 2024 doom-saying, admitting he underestimated Hong Kong’s ability to thrive precisely because of its integration with mainland China. This pattern of miscalculation reflects a broader failure in Western analysis to grasp the adaptive dynamics of China Mainland-Hong Kong relations and the city’s evolving role in an era of US-China strategic competition.
Western Media’s Premature Obituaries
Roach’s original argument published on Financial Times in February last year that Hong Kong would collapse under the “three shocks”, namely, US-China tensions, national security laws, and economic integration, mirrored a well-worn Western narrative.
Hong Kong’s Strategic Pivot in US-China Rivalry
Roach now acknowledges that US-China tensions have “shockingly” strengthened Hong Kong’s position. “What’s changed is, shockingly, the US-China conflict has gotten worse,” Roach, 79, said from his home in Connecticut. “And Hong Kong — rather than getting hammered in the cross fire as I expected and wrote — may be benefiting from that, because of its unique position as China’s most important window to international finance.”
As Bloomberg states, Hong Kong has absorbed US$9.9 billion in IPO capital up to May this year—the highest since 2021, with Washington blocking Chinese firms from Wall Street. CATL’s listing, structured to bypass US restrictions, and SHEIN’s potential pivot from London to Hong Kong highlight the city’s unique value as a bridge between Chinese innovation and global capital.
Far from being “caught in the crossfire,” Hong Kong is emerging as a critical buffer in Beijing’s strategy to circumvent US financial warfare—a reality Bloomberg’s market charts vividly illustrate.
The Irony of Geopolitical Containment
Bloomberg also notes that as US universities tighten restrictions on Chinese students per Trump’s demands, Hong Kong’s academic institutions, boasting world-class research facilities and unimpeded global collaboration, attract top-tier scholars.
These unintended consequences mirror broader trends in US policy. Trump-era tariffs aimed at reshoring manufacturing instead spurred China’s tech self-sufficiency. Similarly, Roach admits that America’s loss has become Hong Kong’s gain. It is the punitive measures of America that created the very conditions for the city’s financial revival. His revised stance that Hong Kong may thrive “because of its Chinese identity, not despite it” marks a belated recognition of the city’s structural advantages.
Meanwhile, the US faces its own existential challenges: a huge debt burden, political polarization, and declining soft power. As Roach notes, America’s MAGA-driven unravelling contrasts sharply with Hong Kong’s managed stability. The city’s ability to adapt—leveraging its dual role as a global financial node and a Chinese metropolis—ensures its relevance long after Western obituaries fade.
As history has shown time and again since China’s reform and opening up in 1978, those who bet on the collapse of China or the demise of Hong Kong have never once been proven right.
Lo Wing-hung
Bastille Commentary
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When a nation edges toward decline, it often makes critical missteps along the way. America’s growing hostility toward international students is precisely such a misstep—one with potentially grave consequences.
Trump’s Assault on International Students
Trump’s campaign against Harvard University shows no signs of letting up. Earlier, he demanded that Harvard halt admissions of international students, prompting the university to secure a temporary restraining order from a local court. Undeterred, Trump then threatened to divert $3 billion in federal funding originally allocated to Harvard to vocational schools, accusing Harvard of rampant anti-Semitism. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt went further, claiming America needs more electricians and plumbers—not graduates from Harvard’s so-called “LGBTQ programs.”
But the crackdown doesn’t stop there. The Trump administration is tightening visa requirements for international students across the board, mandating social media scrutiny to detect any anti-Semitic views. At the same time, US embassies and consulates have been ordered to suspend all visa interviews for students and exchange scholars.
Lesson from Chinese history: Li Si’s Timeless Warning
This aggressive stance against Harvard and international students calls to mind Li Si’s famous “Admonition to Expel Guests” from China’s Warring States period. Li Si, originally from Chu, became a guest minister in Qin. Near the end of the Warring States era, Emperor Ying Zheng of Qin uncovered a plot mapped by the Han state — the “Tiring Qin Plan”—which involved sending Han hydraulic engineer Zheng Guo to Qin to propose building the Guanzhong Canal, a project that drained Qin’s resources. Amid objections and voices from royal relatives and ministers, Emperor Zheng issued an order to expel all guest ministers from the six other states.
Li Si was among those targeted, but he penned the “Admonition to Expel Guests,” urging the Emperor to embrace talent regardless of origin, arguing that a ruler’s magnanimity was essential for national strength. Moved by the memorial, Emperor Zheng revoked the expulsion order, recalled Li Si, and restored his position. Later, Li Si became a key strategist, formulating the plan to “destroy the feudal lords, establish the imperial enterprise, and unify the world,” ultimately founding China’s first centralized empire.
The Power of Embracing Global Talent
This episode underscores a timeless truth: attracting talent from across the world is often the foundation of a strong nation. Over the past century, America’s rise was fueled by its openness to international students and immigrants. During World War II, as Nazi Germany persecuted Jews, prominent scientists like Einstein fled to the US, directly contributing to major technological breakthroughs—including the atomic bomb.
Einstein’s close friend, physicist Leo Szilard, had noticed in early 1939 a groundbreaking discovery published in the journal Nature by German scientists Otto Hahn and others, revealing uranium’s nuclear fission. Szilard drafted a letter, signed by Einstein, to President Roosevelt, warning that splitting uranium atoms could release enormous energy, potentially used to create a new kind of bomb.
Einstein described the bomb’s devastating potential: if a ship carrying uranium bombs detonated in a harbor, it could obliterate the entire port and surrounding area. Though he doubted the bomb’s weight would allow aerial delivery at the time, he warned that Germany’s control over Czech uranium mines and halted uranium sales suggested they were developing such weapons. Roosevelt heeded Einstein’s warning, and six years later, the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending World War II.
This direct cause-and-effect story illustrates the stakes: had Germany not persecuted its Jewish scientists, had America not welcomed talents like Einstein and Szilard, or had Germany developed and used the atomic bomb first against London and Paris, history would have been dramatically rewritten. America’s national destiny is deeply tied to its ability to attract global talent.
Today, no one is writing an “Admonition to Expel Guests” for America — and even if they did, Trump likely wouldn’t listen.
A Strategic Opportunity for Mainland China and Hong Kong
This moment presents a golden opportunity for both Mainland China and Hong Kong to attract talent. Before the 2019 pandemic, China hosted 500,000 foreign students, mostly enrolled in Chinese language programs. The pandemic caused a mass exodus, and numbers have yet to recover fully. With China’s growing strength, it should establish numerous international departments at top universities to attract the world’s brightest minds.
Hong Kong, too, can seize this chance to draw global talent originally aiming for US universities. With a declining birthrate, the SAR government recently raised the quota for foreign students in local universities from 20% to 40%—a welcome policy. If Hong Kong can attract a large influx of international talent, it could elevate its development to a new level.
Lo Wing-hung
