Washington Post’s flawed report on Hong Kong rebutted as city nears top of global competitiveness

While the Washington Post continues to lambast Hong Kong over its National Security Law (NSL), saying recent changes “will chill foreign investment”, the city still enjoys its high ranking in the World Competitive Yearbook (WCY) 2026, a survey undertaken by the International Institute for Management Development.

Hong Kong's global competitiveness has risen for the third consecutive year, up one place to second globally this year, the highest since 2019. It is second only to Singapore and two ranks above Taiwan. The US ranked 10th, 8 points behind Hong Kong.

Among the four competitiveness factors in the WCY 2026, Hong Kong ranks second globally in "government efficiency" and third in "business efficiency". Hong Kong ranks eighth and 11th globally in "infrastructure" and "economic performance" respectively. As regards the various competitiveness sub-factors, Hong Kong tops the rankings in "tax policy" and "business legislation"; ranks second globally in "finance"; third globally in "international trade", "international investment", "management practices" and "education"; and fourth globally in "public finance" and "basic infrastructure".

The Washington Post’s recent commentary on Hong Kong said, “the city’s hardline authorities are making the [NSL] law even more repressive for anyone caught in its net”, that Hong Kong had become “a less secure place to visit or do business” and that the changes “will further chill foreign investment”.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Hong Kong government said the commentary had exposed the newspaper’s “irrational anti-China stance” and amounted to “wanton slander” and “groundless allegations”.

It is time for the Post to face facts and respect the truth, including honest opinions expressed by its fellow countrymen who invest their money and do business in and with Hong Kong.

The government spokesperson said that, amid rapidly evolving geopolitical dynamics, Hong Kong, with its close connectivity to both the Chinese mainland and the world under the 'one country, two systems' principle, and its sound institutions, open markets and sustained investments in innovation, has become a 'value hub' that offers both security and growth opportunities. In fact, Hong Kong continues to excel in various international rankings including those for economy, finance, and talent.

The International Monetary Fund has also given positive recognition to Hong Kong in recent months, and major credit rating agencies have successively reaffirmed Hong Kong's credit ratings and 'stable' outlook. All these echo the WCY 2026 results.

Even the American Chamber of Commerce here ridiculed the Post by citing an AmCham survey showing increased confidence in the city’s business environment and rule of law.

Last year, Hong Kong knocked Switzerland off its perch for the top spot as the world’s largest cross-border wealth hub while it reclaimed the global initial public offering (IPO) crown for the first time since 2019, with 114 listings raising HK$292 billion. And this year accounting giant Deloitte has estimated that Hong Kong's (IPO) market in the first half of this year had come in second globally, with 78 new listings raising around HK$203.3 billion still with half a year to go.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq claimed the crown for most IPOs after seeing 60 new listings raise HK$872.4 billion during the period, though Deloitte said the stand out performance by the US bourse was largely boosted by SpaceX which alone raised HK$675.8 billion. Without SpaceX's IPO, Hong Kong's stock exchange could have "narrowly surpassed" the Nasdaq to top the world.

The Post is hardly in a position to criticize Hong Kong and should clean up its own backyard before doing so. The troubled Post has been plagued with financial and staff problems in recent years. Staffers also became worried about the CEO and publisher William Lewis’ drinking and uninvolved role in the newsroom. The publisher continued to grapple with declining revenue and readership and sought strategies to regain subscribers lost during the Trump era. In January 2025, the Post announced it will lay off 4 per cent of its staff.

In February 2025, trillionaire wannbe and owner Jeff Bezos announced that the opinion section of the Post would publish only pieces that support "personal liberties and free markets". Within two days of the announcement, it was reported that more than 75,000 digital subscribers had canceled their subscriptions.

As an illustration of its editorial intrusions, the Post editorial board had drafted an endorsement for Kamala Harris for the 2024 presidential elections, but it had been blocked by order of Bezos. The move was criticized by former executive editor Martin Baron, who considered it "disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage", and suggested that Bezos was fearing retaliation from US President Donald Trump that could impact Bezos's other businesses.

The Post is “dying in darkness.”

Mark Pinkstone

** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **

The idea that mainland nurses are being hired in Hong Kong to replace locally trained nurses is totally false and planted in the media as a cheap publicity stunt by the champion of the nurses.

The preposterous suggestion first surfaced on a September 17 Commercial Radio talk show when a disciplined services psychiatric nurse said there was an “unwritten rule” that the Hospital Authority reserved some recruitment spots for mainland Chinese nurses. He added that his daughter, who wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps, was unable to find a job after graduating.

The 30,000-strong Association of Hong Kong Nursing Staff immediately waded in by issuing five “demands”, including a call to prioritize the hiring of local graduates. They should have done their homework. But, in reality the five so-call “demands”, as reported by local media, were actually the association’s aims and objectives.

The Association simply urged the authorities to prioritize employment for fresh local nursing graduates amid reports of some graduates struggling to secure public hospital positions and suggested slowing down or carefully calibrating the intake of non-locally trained nurses to match actual local recruitment realities.

The Association’s chairman, Tse Kin-keung, said he was unsure how authorities did the maths, but that the association was aware of more fresh graduates failing to find a job this year. He said introducing non-locally trained nurses should take into account local recruitment. He suggested the hiring of non-locally trained nurses should be slowed down.

The Hospital Authority (HA), armed with a treasure trove of facts and figures, strongly rebutted the claim saying that less than 0.5 per cent of all nurses in Hong Kong were not locally trained.

Some 99.8 percent of nurses in public hospitals were locally trained. This, said a government spokesman, reflected that locally trained nurses remain the backbone of the public healthcare system.

The government is concerned that the suggestion that the HA has an “unwritten rule” to hire non-local (mainland) nurses over locals could have an adverse impact on its recruitment drive to fill vacancies within the HA.

Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau said, "I don't want recent comments about 'graduation and then unemployment' to dampen the interest of our younger generation in joining the nursing profession. Nurse training takes time; it’s not something you can do overnight. If these false statements affect recruitment next year or in the future, we will bear the consequences. This isn’t about an isolated case, such as someone who couldn’t find work because he applied to the Hospital Authority after graduation, chose to take a year-long trip, returned later, and then claimed he couldn’t find work. I think it’s also irresponsible to generalise from a single, isolated case to the broader situation that all nurses can’t find jobs. This will affect the profession’s development and, ultimately, the Hong Kong healthcare system and the public will suffer.”

There are currently about 50 non-locally trained registered nurses (RN) serving in the HA, accounting for less than 0.2 per cent of the total number of nurses in the HA. In other words, about 99.8 per cent of RNs working in the HA are locally trained.

With an ageing population and the continuous growth in demand for healthcare services, the demand for nursing services in Hong Kong remains keen. There are still some 3 200 nurse vacancies in the HA to date, and recruitment is ongoing. This reflects that there remains a genuine demand for nursing manpower in the public healthcare system.

The HA’s load of statistics indicate there were about 4 000 prospective nursing graduates in 2025, of which about 3 500 became Registered Nurses (RNs) or Enrolled Nurses (ENs). Also last year, about 2 500 persons applied for RN and EN posts in the HA, representing about 60 per cent of the total number of prospective graduates of that year.

The figures show that not all graduates chose to join the public healthcare system, with some opting to pursue careers in various sectors such as private healthcare institutions, elderly and rehabilitation services, community nursing organisations, as well as insurance and health management.