But like others have said, they (CX) appear to have little interest north of London
It depends, if Cathay serve Hong Kong direct from MAN they have a one stop service onto Oz and such, however serving LHR/HKG is restricting the attractiveness to Hong Kong itself as it's one more stop to connect on versus the Unholy Trinity of EK/QR/EY. Key point is can they make money going back into the MAN market against such a behemouth on connections or are they content to serve only Hong Kong with a BA connection? It's not about bravado or "being interested", it's about fighting a battle against an entrenched competitor with bottomless petro-pockets.
Even the mighty SQ took enough of a hit to introduce as less than useful one stop via MUC service to try and balance the books better. Would CX fare any better?