I hope any browsing reader will spend time with the many figures showing Hong Kong’s financial centrality in the Chinese economy that can be found in the chapter about Hong Kong’s role as China’s offshore financial center. It has been a very common conception that given China’s continuous economic growth, Hong Kong is no longer useful to China economically as a provider of investment and economic know-how. This conception leads many to believe Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong is an easy decision and that Hong Kong’s freedom and autonomy are over, as Beijing has no reason to reverse its tightening control of Hong Kong. This is actually what Beijing wants Hong Kong people and the world to believe, but it is far from reality.

The financial data that I show graphically in the book illustrate clearly that until today, Hong Kong is still the irreplaceable gateway through which global investment goes into China and Chinese investment flows out to the world. The Chinese Communist Party still sees its control of the banks and China’s financial sector as one key pillar of its control of the economy and society. As such, it cannot let go of the insulation of the Chinese economy from global finance. It cannot let foreign banks directly do business in China. It cannot let its people and companies freely move money in and out of China. With this control in place, wealthy Chinese people and companies have to continue to get access to foreign financial services and channel their money to the outside world through the Hong Kong financial system.

Hong Kong’s financial centrality to China’s economic system would not change unless the Communist Party of China suddenly lets go of its control of the economy with a meaningful financial liberalization reform. Beijing has been talking of such reform for decades, but it has never happened, and it will not happen easily so long as the Communist Party is still in power. Therefore, Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong carries the great risk of damaging the viability of Hong Kong’s financial market, which depends a lot on the trust of foreign governments and companies in Hong Kong’s autonomy from China, the rule of law, and free flow of information. The dilemma between the imperative of maintaining Hong Kong’s financial centrality and the imperative of tightening direct control of Hong Kong is still very true in Beijing. Therefore, the social and political peace and order restored through the crackdown on the protests under the National Security Law is not stable. A new equilibrium has not been attained yet. We will continue to see cleavages among different ruling elite factions in Hong Kong, as well as the back and forth of attempts by Beijing to further tighten control over Hong Kong.International attention to Hong Kong comes and goes with the coming and going of spectacular protest scenes in Hong Kong. I hope the book can let readers realize the struggle for freedom and autonomy in Hong Kong–and the story of Hong Kong at large–has not ended, given the persistence of the dire contradictions that Beijing faces regarding Hong Kong.