The ship has already sailed away on full political autonomy in Hong Kong, but that doesn’t mean the region’s best days are behind it, a key executive for one of the Asian hub’s top conglomerates said in Atlanta Friday.
John R. Slosar, executive chairman of Swire Pacific Ltd., believes the so-called “handover” of the territory from British to Chinese rule 20 years ago has yielded clear benefits despite predictions of disaster during the mid-1990s.
Swire Pacific’s fortunes have tracked Hong Kong’s rise, with revenues reaching $8 billion in 2016. Its vast holdings include Coca-Cola bottling operations on the mainland and in Hong Kong, as well as property, marine services and aviation assets. The company owns a 45 percent stake in Cathay Pacific, the Hong Kong airline with cargo flights to Atlanta. Mr. Slosar is the airline’s chairman and former CEO. He’s also a director of HSBC, the British-owned global bank, among many other board positions within the Swire Group and beyond.
Mr. Slosar has lived in Hong Kong since the early 1980s, when water was rationed for a time. Since 1997, he said he has seen clear evidence of positive Chinese stewardship of the region.
A few reasons: Twelve years after the handover, the local stock market unexpectedly became the top IPO generator in the world. The city has become a key trading hub for offshore renminbi (a special class of Chinese currency) as China has sought to assert its financial clout internationally. Hong Kong remains the world’s biggest air cargo hub and its freest economy as rated by the Heritage Foundation.
In other words, the local economy has grown in lock step with China’s rise, and the future is bright as long as the government maintains its “light touch” on regulatory and tax issues.
“Is there a reason to say that Hong Kong’s best days are in front of it? I think there is a great reason to say so,” Mr. Slosar said at a luncheon hosted by the National Association of Chinese Americans and the Hong Kong Association of Atlanta.
Some say, however, the political price of these developments has been too high. Advocates claim that China has eroded freedom of expression and exerted too much influence on Hong Kong’s elections. Mounting frustration has led to widespread protests, including the so-called Umbrella Movement that shut down parts of the city in 2014.
Ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit this year for 20th-anniversary celebrations, pro-democracy protesters made waves by draping a black shroud over an iconic statue gifted to Hong Kong by China when they were reunited in 1997.
In speeches during his visit, Mr. Xi drew a stark line between China’s pledge to provide a “high level of autonomy” and any talk of formal independence.
Mr. Slosar said political issues “will evolve over time.” For those who have used a pro-democracy platform to obstruct progress, a reality check is in order, he said.
“It’s a done deal. Hong Kong is part of China,” he said, noting that voters previously rejected a referendum that would have changed Hong Kong’s Basic Law to allow for direct elections out of fear that the candidates would be hand-picked by China. Hong Kong has a special committee that elects the chief executive.
Spirited debate over real issues is well and good, Mr. Slosar said, but he believes it should focus more practical problems than idealistic obstructionism.
“Talking about things that can be made better is one thing. Trying to stop progress totally is a bad thing,” he said.
Balancing this debate is a challenge facing newly elected Chief Executive Carrie Lam, the first woman to hold the position, as she seeks to tackle a housing shortage and an education system that needs upgrading as Hong Kongers compete in a more innovative global economy.
But overall, Mr. Slosar had an optimistic message about the potential for Hong Kong to grow as it integrates more closely with the nearby mainland cities that form the Pearl River Delta.
Once known for cheap labor, the region is now a place where technology and manufacturing knowhow fuse well with capital and innovation. Shenzhen has grown into China’s tech hub, home to drone leader DJI, major telecoms like Huawei and ZTE, and Tencent, the Internet behemoth behind the WeChat app and other online platforms like QQ.
For the first three decades of China’s rise, the area was under-networked, Mr. Slosar said, with each city competing for their own piece of the manufacturing pie.
With new trains and links like the Zhuhai bridge connecting the region better, these cities are working together to create the Greater Bay Area, a zone of encompassing about 66 million people. Better integration creates various opportunities, as long as the governments can agree on how to deal with border issues.
“China can amaze with its flexibility when it gets its mind around it,” Mr. Slosar said.
The Lok Ma Chao Loop is an example. The undeveloped patch of wetlands is owned by Shenzhen but will be administered by Hong Kong as the two sides jointly develop it into a high-tech business park.
As China’s outbound investment conduit, Hong Kong is also poised to capitalize on the One Belt, One Road plan, a massive infrastructure building spree across Asia he compared to “China’s Marshall plan,” putting to work wealth generated externally largely through inbound foreign investment.
While the initiative is wrapped in grandiose language that draws from ancient trade routes, “it turns into real projects on the ground” in places like Pakistan and Southeast Asia, Mr. Slosar said.
He believes that all this opportunity outweighs the threat of Hong Kong becoming just another Chinese city.
“I think distinctiveness is something that’s dynamic and created for each generation. I don’t think that it’s something that is particularly innate,” he told Global Atlanta, explaining Hong Kong’s need to continually reinvent itself. “If you’re distinctive, you’re distinctive because you make yourself so.”
While he understands the angst of younger protesters, he believes they should focus more on contributing to Hong Kong rather than only criticizing its leaders.
“You can’t expect the system to give you the answer before you’re even part of it,” he said.
If they step up, Hong Kong has a major advantage that has driven its meteoric rise: its intelligent, hospitable people are the city’s “secret weapon,” he said.
Atlanta and Hong Kong have many links, one of which is the a Cathay Pacific freighter service. Mr. Slosar joked that it wouldn’t be too comfortable for passengers to be “strapped to a pallet” on the dedicated freighter.
He ribbed General Electric Vice Chairman John Rice, who lived in Atlanta for years and was also in attendance, about providing higher-powered plane engines to make a nonstop flight possible in the future.
Mr. Slosar also praised NACA, the Hong Kong Association of Atlanta and particularly, Atlanta banker and investment adviser Henry Yu, for organizing his participation in the program.