COMPLIANCE OFFICERS, EXPECT A HEAVY DOSE OF PRO-BEIJING PROPAGANDA FROM HONG KONG FROM NOW ON

What you are reading is recent from the SCMP, pushing economic development and urging HK readers to ignore new laws infringing upon human rights. It smacks of 1984  and Big Brother. I think it's time to take ANY news out of Hong Kong with a healthy dose of caution, especially financial news. Remember, reporting from within HK, on Chinese companies, could get you a long term in a Mainland Chinese PRC prison; I kid you not. Look at the latest two national security laws now in place. And they are definitely not "home-grown" national security laws. These are straight from Beijing's autocratic leadership.

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Hong Kong has come a long way, in a relatively short time, since the anti-government protest chaos of 2019 plunged the city into an existential crisis and placed its future in jeopardy.

Fast forward to this week and the city marked National Security Education Day with added significance, being the first such occasion following the enactment of Hong Kong’s home-grown national security law. Officials also put the emphasis on the same day, April 15, marking the 10th anniversary of President Xi Jinping’s launch of a holistic approach to protecting the entire country amid geopolitical tensions with China’s adversaries.

While the United States and its allies continue to raise the alarm about an “erosion of Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms” with the enactment of the domestic national security legislation, the city itself is moving on to shift its focus to economic development.

That message was amplified by Xia Baolong, Beijing’s top man on Hong Kong affairs, who urged the city to embrace a “new era” and “go all out for the economy”. He also promised a string of favourable policies would be coming to give Hong Kong a boost.

The city is doing its part to raise its international profile and attract talent, with the government reporting that nearly 2,000 professionals earning HK$10 million or more a year have successfully applied over the past 12 months to live here.

The government also invited more than 2,000 people, among them so-called social media influencers and international celebrities, to the city last year to help promote tourism. It will be up to lawmakers to scrutinise how effective the spending of taxpayers’ money has been on that front.