Bloomberg report..
A year ago, when Hong Kong was dethroned by Singapore in the annual Heritage Foundation ranking of the world’s freest economies, a top official predicted the city would soon return to the spot it had held for 25 straight years.
Instead, Hong Kong disappeared entirely from the latest edition of the list, published Thursday. Together with Macau, it is now counted as part of China to reflect Beijing’s increasing sway over policy following months of pro-democracy protests in 2019.
China resides in 107th place in the ranking, sandwiched between Uganda and Uzbekistan among economies rated as “mostly unfree.”
While Hong Kong and Macau residents benefit from policies that offer greater economic freedom than on the mainland, “developments in recent years have demonstrated unambiguously that those policies are ultimately controlled from Beijing,” the study’s authors wrote.
Hong Kong remained at the top of the list of freest economies following its 1997 return to Chinese rule, buttressing the argument that it was the ideal gateway to China, with an independent judiciary, free press and deep financial markets. Officials often referred to the Heritage Foundation ranking when touting Hong Kong’s credentials as a financial hub.
Unrest Erupts
But the cracks in that edifice were exposed in 2019, when simmering discontent with Beijing’s rising influence boiled over into months of mass demonstrations and violence that sapped business confidence. The unrest led to Hong Kong losing its top Heritage Foundation ranking for the first time since its inception in 1995.
At the time, Hong Kong officials struck a defiant tone. “I can confidently say that the conditions that have long made Hong Kong a place with a high level of economic freedom won’t change because of what we experienced in the past,” Edward Yau, the secretary for commerce and economic development, told reporters after the 2020 ranking was published in March last year. He said he expected Hong Kong’s ranking to recover.
Finance Secretary Paul Chan on Thursday pushed back against the Heritage Foundation’s decision to remove Hong Kong’s standalone ranking.
“When they arrived at that decision, they must have been clouded by their ideological inclination and political bias,” Chan said during an online conference, according to Radio Television Hong Kong.
Read more at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-04/hong-kong-dumped-from-economic-freedom-index-it-used-to-dominate
