I wonder if HK isn’t now on a slow, painful, and irreversible slide towards being like every other Mainland Chinese city. Business will decline, gradually, to a new normal which is far less robust and dynamic than in decades past. Popularity with Westerners, and even other Asians, will decline and be more from nostalgia than excitement. This will lead to a worse economy, lower wages, and a lower standard of living. Communism (socialism) always ends in the same fate. Centralized government can only compensate for so long, and then.... Venezuela!
China’s future isn’t great either. The rest of the world has caught onto their scam, and the cheap labor isn’t that cheap anymore. The population has a horrific demographic problem, and the natural environment is essentially poisonously toxic. There is a precarious lack of natural resources, and pretty much everybody sees China for what they are now. The ostriches of the world are finally pulling their collective heads out of the sand, except for the most ideological, short-term greedy, and obtuse.
Is it over for HK? No, but it is dying a slow, painful death. What remains will be a mere shell of its prior self. If anyone can see a different ending, please spit it out because I’m struggling to find positives at this point.