LATE last year thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators poured onto the streets of Hong Kong calling for the right to elect the city’s leader in 2017, free of interference by the central government in Beijing. In recent weeks protests have flared again; far smaller this time, but more violent and similarly fuelled by resentment of the mainland’s encroachment. At issue has been the hordes of mainland Chinese who visit Hong Kong to buy goods for black-market resale at home, a racket described locally as “parallel trading”. These new and nastier outbursts are about far more than shopping; they suggest that antagonism towards the mainland is deepening and spreading beyond the territory’s urban core. This is causing anxiety among officials on both sides of the border.
In 2002, five years after the end of British colonial rule, the Hong Kong government abolished a quota on Chinese tourists. Since 2009 residents of Shenzhen, a city adjoining Hong Kong, have been able to cross the border as often as they like. The loosening of restrictions has been credited by Hong Kong officials with reviving the city’s flagging economy. But many Hong Kongers feel...Continue reading
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