Bankers and Teachers Support Occupy Hong Kong

The July 1st. 2014 protests in Hong Kong, are officially the largest protests in the city’s history with turnout estimates ranging anywhere from 150,000 to 500,000 people.

It was easy to overlook the diversity of the participants. The youth-led movement was started by Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP), a Hong Kong offshoot of the Occupy movement. Using the traditional July 1st protests to commemorate the 1997 handover of Hong to the Chinese from the British, OCLP turned this year’s protest into a referendum on democracy and elected government.

This year they got a very receptive audience from the Hong Kong public. Many are leery of Beijing and the government after a 14,500 page White Paper published by the State Council Information Office on June 10th, 2014.  It emphasizes that Hong Kong does not have autonomy and is subordinate to Beijing’s oversight.

A “public referendum” for more democracy in Hong Kong was organized by “Occupy Central” political campaigners and nearly 800,000 people voted. This drew the attention of education and business leaders who traditionally had ignored OCLU as a rag-tag band of college students looking to create civil discord.

Teachers from across Hong Kong’s Universities not only spoke out in support of the movement but many even participated in the July 1st protest.

Interestingly. the movement is also drawing support from Hong Kong’s traditionally conservative banking sector where 70 of the city’s top fund managers formed a cell within the Occupy movement and took a very active role in the protests.
They are worried about the encroachment of Beijing and the ensuing corruption and nepotism that runs the markets in the rest of China becoming the norm in Hong Kong as well.

“[The] financial mainland,” says Hong Kong Hedge Manager Lai Chong Au, “want to conduct their business in Hong Kong as they do at home through guanxi.”

“Guanxi,” the traditional Chinese system of service obligations and exchanging favors is at the heart of the investment banking communities fears if Hong Kong loses its autonomy. It is seen as a corrupt power system in which the children of the powerful are given control of financial markets despite their lack of education or talent.

“We should not take a son or a daughter of an office holder,” says Edward Chin, 41, another hedge fund manager who took part in the protests,” and prefer them to a holder of an MBA from Harvard.”

To be fair, a large segment of Hong Kong’s business community is firmly behind Beijing’s “Free Markets Not People” move toward bringing Hong Kong in line with the rest of China. “These protests will be bad for business and social stability,” says Hong Kong’s former central banker Joseph Yam Chi-kwong. “Beijing and the Hong Kong government have made it absolutely clear that civil nomination is unconstitutional, for it does not conform to the Basic Law.”

By: Eric Trommater

A liberal living in Northern Virginia. Father of Two great kids. Former sports writer and movie critic.