well Hong Kong has been under in turmoil for months after protests were sparked
by a bill that would have permitted extradition to mainland China
since then the protests have transformed into broader anti-government
demonstrations now the five months of protests are taking a toll on not only
the Hong Kong economy but US president ultram signing into law bills but
support Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement is complicating relations
between the US and China and of course this as the two superpowers have a
December 15th deadline to meet now joining me live from Hong Kong via Skype
is David Lee senior lecturer of Business and Economics at the University of Hong
Kong David thanks so much for joining us now I'm asked somewhere on the ground
would you briefly explain to us the current situation in Hong Kong as your
reporter mentioned there's certainly been a mole after the district council
elections last week but clearly this weekend
there have been protests again you know most of the transportation system is
generally getting back to normal but I think more broadly the idea of continued
protests is probably the new normal it may not be the larger scale that we saw
a few months ago but clearly you know protesters do a lot of demands I think
that haven't been made yet and that will continue to manifest itself in the kind
of the protest activity that we'll see and and beyond that you know a lot of
the universities were closed including my University we basically closed early
the semester ended early and we've been doing alternative means of trying to
deliver education but you know I don't think this is certainly this is not an
end to the protests I mean you know it's medias a lot of globally certainly
protest will continue mm-hm now I want to get into the business and
economic aspect of things how our business is in Hong Kong being pulled
into this I mean how are these protests in Hong Kong impacting the the economic
conditions in Hong Kong for instance for businesses investment tourism I'm sure
there are a lot more to that yes sir I think broadly if you think of it as
two big buckets on one hand there are obviously businesses that are directly
related to people visiting Hong Kong cities like hotels
you know resident shopping areas restaurants things like that and most of
those have been considerably a lot of these businesses argued towards having
in particular mainland visitors who come from mainland China and if you look at a
lot of kind of financial reports accounting that's come out I would say
the last few weeks even most of those businesses have been quite hard there
are even some businesses that reported you know even being down upwards of 90
percent of revenue you're on this compared to this time last year they're
down 90 percent of revenue so there's a number of businesses like that I think
in a lot of major tourist and business destinations in Hong Kong there's been a
fair amount of store closures or impending store closures because a lot
of places can't meet rents rents are obviously very very high in
Hong Kong so that's one bucket the businesses that are you know directly
impacted by lack of these zippers but I think more broadly there has been a
backlash it gets a business establishments particularly those tied
to two Chinese mainland Chinese business entities so you this is when you see in
a lot of kind of vandal of analyzation of store fronts and bank fronts and most
of those businesses are tied to either businesses that are directly somehow
related to mainland China or you know are seem to be support kind of mainland
China in all of this and so then it's kind of probably the other bucket and
both of those combined have put Hong Kong in a technical recession recently
Oh even techno recession know um now let's get to the the broader things that
how do you expect mr. Trump's latest signing a bill supporting pro-democracy
movements in Hong Kong would play out in the us-china trade negotiations
China was riled up by this and there's a 15 to December 15th deadline to meet
between US and China yeah I do I think one thing to point out is that
versions of this bill have been around for years actually four or five years I
mean so this bill this law itself though it's recently signed into law has been
around that idea of this bill it's been around for years even probably since
occupy Central which is about five years ago so the idea that goes not new that
the context of is obviously new because it's happening within the context of
large-scale protests in Hong Kong but as well as kind of a turbulent time in the
us-china relationship of no driven by a large to buy trade at the moment I think
the other thing to realize would point out is that you know being kind of a
kind of anti China I guess is one of the few issues at least in US politics that
both Republicans and Democrats are kind of on the same page about which is
reflected in the vote both in the house vote in the Senate vote for the Hong
Kong democracy and Human Rights Act and so that's kind of the backdrop so
there's nobody who's gonna lose political points for supporting this
bill in the US which is why I look through so quickly now to your question
specifically about how this will impact your sure if it will to be frank um you
know the genesis in the impetus of kind of the u.s. trying to become tough on on
China trade had nothing to do with Hong Kong protests and ultimately from an
economic perspective and a business perspective still really has nothing to
do with Hong Kong protests that said you know trying the protesters here and you
know some supporters in the u.s. who want to make it obvious who try to use
this as a tool to try to link those two issues but I think if you're just
looking at it from a purely business and economic sense I mean those two are
somewhat unrelated but you know that the nature of politics these days links them
but again I think in the long run this new bill will have minimal effect on the
overall kind of result of what happens with us-china trade and if they end up
meeting December 15th deadline or not you know what that remains to be seen
but I think clearly you know the central government Beijing when it comes to
these kind of matters usually takes a hard line or probe
and to these things on how they respond so I'm not sure that net would be very
beneficial moving the process along
absolutely so what you're saying is a us-china trade negotiations may not be
so affected by this but the Hong Kong economy Chinese economy Chinese
businesses really related to Hong Kong or based in Hong Kong are taking a toll
so we'll have to wait and see how all this plays out in the world economy
David Lee senior lecturer at the university of hong kong thank you so
much for joining us today thank you