Hong Kong hopes to trawl the world for tech talent to build IT city

Hong Kong has decided it wants to become a technology hub again, and has unveiled plans to "trawl" the world for talent to make it happen. The Special Administrative Region's plan was outlined yesterday in a speech by John Lee, who was elected chief executive of Hong Kong in May. Lee was the only candidate, but had the …

[DS999]

Good luck with that

A non-Chinese would have to be crazy to move to Hong Kong to start a business, between potential escalation in the trade war with the US and China making arbitrary decisions that have already taken $1 trillion off tech market caps in China. Or worse, just deciding at some point that your business is going to become the property of the state.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: Good luck with that

Also the serious risk to your personal safety should you speak out against the CCP or mention Tiananmen Square, etc.

Of course the numerous restrictions on internet access that goes with that but also hampers any international business.

[RPF]

Re: Good luck with that

Or even have criticised the regime in the past!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Good luck with that

Even a Chinese who isn't comfortable working under the CCP's eye in say, Suzhou, would be crazy to work in Hong Kong as there's nothing special about Hong Kong anymore. Just another CCP crushed Chinese city.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Good luck with that

If you don't like Hong Kong, I understand there are a lot of openings in Russia.

[TVU]

Re: Good luck with that

Indeed, and the title of this report ought perhaps to read, "Hong Kong hopes to troll the world for tech talent to build IT city".

Who on earth is going to want to to move to Hong Kong now that is has no autonomy now and is under full Xi Jinping dictatorial control?

[First Light]

Hong Kong Autonomous Region

Hong Kong is a Chinese city under Chinese government.

It's ridiculous to try and claim it is somehow different from mainland China ("connected to the world").

They should just call it "Hong Kong Autonomous Region" like they have with Tibet. Which is CCP-speak for "just another part of China".

For sure, some people will come who just want the money and benefits. But I doubt they will be overwhelmed with recruits.

[katrinab]

Re: Hong Kong Autonomous Region

It is a bit bigger than a "city". In terms of size, it is more like a county, with (arguably) two cities, a load of towns and villages, and a surprisingly large amount of countryside.

[J.G.Harston]

Re: Hong Kong Autonomous Region

Geographically, it's about the size of London. If you picture two Landranger maps cover London, two Landranger scale/size maps also cover Hong Kong.

[Triggerfish]

Re: Hong Kong Autonomous Region

Its about 7.5m population and covers 78.89 kmsq, it's not even a large city by Chinese standards

[katrinab]

Re: Hong Kong Autonomous Region

Sure, but if you look at the map of urban / rural areas, it is clear that it is not one continuous city.

You can argue about whether Central and Kowloon are two separate settlements or one settlement on two sides of a strait, but Sha Tin, Tai Po, and many others are very definitely separate towns.

[Triggerfish]

Re: Hong Kong Autonomous Region

Doh I thought you said country TBH :D

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting out while they can

I thought they had a brain drain situation with people getting out of there while there's still a chance. At least that's what some of the people I've met recently who've recently moved from HK to the UK. A friend was looking to rent out their house while they were abroad for a while and said that an estate agent in Reading was telling them that they had more people from HK on their books looking for accommodation than there were rental properties in the whole town.

I know this is just anecdotal but I could easily understand why people might be keen to leave, the guys I've worked with from HK over the years haven't exactly been the sort who were easily kowtowed.

[Andy 73]

Sadly

Hong Kong is a beautiful city, the more so if you can dig beneath the surface.

In previous decades I've known friends and family from around the world travel to, live and work there for the fantastic opportunities it presented. Sadly under the current regime, it would be very hard to justify a move there given the restrictions being imposed both on personal lives and businesses.

Until China has properly faced up to it's economic and health crisis, and stepped back from a needlessly aggressive and confrontational international stance, Hong Kong will remain too unsettled and uncertain a place to want to build a future. From it's remarkable history, that's a huge shame.

[pwl]

Re: Sadly

I agree - I love Hong Kong & its juxtaposition of cultures that is such an enormous part of its charm. It breaks my heart to witness it being ground down into just another chinese city.

[amanfromMars 1]

If you’ve got IT, flaunt it, for it is worth ten fortunes at least ....

For those made of the right stuff, and with something attractive and unique to offer a troubled and troubling situation, is Hong Kong/China/the Special Administrative Region a rich vein of opportunity to provide with future services presenting novel programs and projects launching and entertaining prosperity and supplying profit to that and those in need of, or even simply desirous of a great deal more of it.

And an incredibly valuable immaculately resourceful asset for export/import to any similarly pioneering jurisdiction/territory

An example of something attractive and unique to offer would certainly surely be the provision of future services presenting novel programs and projects launching and entertaining prosperity and supplying profit to that and those in need of, or even simply desirous of, a great deal more of it.

[amanfromMars 1]

Back again. Dear, oh dear. Anyway*

Crikey, how pathetic and prime indicative it is of an ignorant and bankrupt of novel ideas mindset, El Reg, to have garnered/energised so many anonymous thumbs down, for the sharing of something absolutely vital for political puppets to perform well with whilst they try to expound and expand upon the notion that any magic potions proposed to be trialed and trailed are of their own volition and Greater IntelAIgent Games design.

:-) Goodness knows what HM King Charles III thought to say when Liz ["I have therefore spoken to His Majesty the King"] troubled/delighted him again with news of her resignation/abdication/unconditional surrender yesterday?

* ...Back again. Dear, oh dear. Anyway

Oh, and another thing which you might like to think is going to be absolutely vital over these next few days is ...... should there be no engagement with nor any anonymous source leaking to mainstream media channels of a radical and fundamental rethinking of the politically incorrect manipulation of human perception for global presentation, ..... will any current systems oven ready deals be subject to an onslaught of searing microwaves and be burnt to a crisp.

Seven days/A week is a long time in politics and quite long enough to engage with that fix which pulls the proverbial rabbit out of the hat and is able to prevent nothing less than titanic colossal catastrophes.

:-) That title could have been written ...... Back again dear. Oh dear. Anyway :-)

[J.G.Harston]

"or already earn salaries over $315,000."

Odd that. Normally you import foreign talent because it's cheaper than the local talent, or because the local talent is absent *regardless* of price.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure anybody earning that much money elsewhere is going to want to go and live in an apartment the size of a cupboard in a dictatorship.

[A.P. Veening]

Not sure anybody earning that much money elsewhere is going to want to go and live in an apartment the size of a cupboard in a dictatorship.

That dictatorship is the true killer, for an inhabitant of Tokyo an apartment that size is quite spacious.

[A.P. Veening]

The local talent is absent as they already got out to freeer pastures.

[Anonymous Coward]

$315,000??

Nobody earning that kind of salary does real work. That's just the kind of money managers give themselves, isn't it?

Or are we talking about Hong Kong dollars instead of US dollars?

[Michael Wojcik]

It's a bizarre metric anyway. Does Lee really believe that salary reflects talent? And that salaries are directly comparable worldwide in that regard? Even within an organization, salaries are often adjusted based on local cost of living, which does not correlate to ability in any way.

I mean, the "100 top universities" metric is clearly rubbish, but at least it might sound reasonable to the hard-of-thinking. The salary thing doesn't make any sense at all.

[Coastal cutie]

Taking up this offer would put the biggest security red flag on your CV this side of being Putin's IT manager

[A.P. Veening]

Taking up this offer would put the biggest security red flag on your CV this side of being Putin's IT manager

Not quite, also marrying a sweet, young, local lady would nicely split the difference.

[Charlie Clark]

Singapore says catch me if you can

The Chinese have managed to trash Hong Kong as a place for international finance which has been moving to Singapore since the repression started, accelerated by hamfisted handling of the pandemic. This in turn means it has little more to offer than Shanghai for mainland Chinese. Without international capital, there's no market for Dim Sum bonds, which is pretty much all there was left.

It's a wonderful part of the world but who wants to live with the threat of the next lockdown and with their own personal minder making sure they talk to the right people and say the right things?

[PhilipN]

Re: Singapore says catch me if you can

Thought you were talking about HK - talking through your hat, that is, but be that as it may.

Your last sentence made me realise you must be talking about Lee Kwan Yew’s Singapore.

[PhilipN]

Great deal of piffle being spoken here

Not to mention xenophobia.

Take, for example, references to Hong Kong which more correctly mean China. From Hong Kong, China is over there, pal, past the Immigration facilities. Don’t forget your passport.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Great deal of piffle being spoken here

China might maintain the pretence that "One Country, Two Systems" is still a thing, and the bureaucratic distinction and machinery might still be in place.

But since the 2019/2020 crackdown, it's pretty clear to everyone else that it's been destroyed in all but name, and China can- and will- override whatever it wants in Hong Kong. No-one with any sense would treat it as meaningfully distinct from Mainland China any more.

Playing the victim with spurious claims of "xenophobia" won't change that.

[PhilipN]

Re: Great deal of piffle being spoken here

Thanks for proving my point

[TVU]

Re: Great deal of piffle being spoken here

"China might maintain the pretence that "One Country, Two Systems" is still a thing, and the bureaucratic distinction and machinery might still be in place.

But since the 2019/2020 crackdown, it's pretty clear to everyone else that it's been destroyed in all but name"

Indeed, and Macau has also experienced Borg-style assimilation into the red motherland.

[PhilipN]

Re: Great deal of piffle being spoken here

Obviously you have not been to either place recently or at all.

Macao has been gravely affected more than anything else by the crackdown across the border on corruption and the collapse of casino business emanating from the Mainland. Everything else is barely a blip on the screen.

[amanfromMars 1]

Growing the Economy Sino-Soviet Style ?????

Do you think China could teach the UK and Parliamentary government a thing or two about how to grow an economy, given the evidence/tales told available here about how much China has grown over a very short space of real time, as opposed to the right hash the UK’s Parliamentarians have made of all of their dire efforts over the decades, whenever so much has got steadily and then suddenly a great deal worse, and probably to get worser still as the future unfolds and a dark and cold winter sets in.

Be honest now and don’t delude yourself. Such is worse than not helpful, it is self-destructive.

And if you don’t like what you read there about how things are elsewhere, you’re not gonna be too pleased about the present course of action revealed as being current for future applications revealed in this submission ......... https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/multipolar-world-order-part-3

Whenever things are the way they are, disagreeing and ineffectively saying they aint is never going to change anything to your way of thinking.

[TVU]

Re: Growing the Economy Sino-Soviet Style ?????

"Do you think China could teach the UK and Parliamentary government a thing or two about how to grow an economy, given the evidence/tales told available here about how much China"

No, is the very clear answer to that because Xi Jinping is now implementing standard Stalinist command and control measures on the entire economy including on the profitable tech giants. He is in the process of strangling the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Premier Li Keqiang is far more sensible but he's not the president. That is unfortunate and the two term presidential limit was put into place for a reason and that is to stop the presidential leader from becoming wholly out of touch with reality and going completely rotten. Just look at how the basket case Putin in Moscow is (dys)functioning with no term limits.

[Michael Wojcik]

For very small values of 2

The chief executive declared that "The more firmly the 'One Country' principle is upheld, the greater strength the 'Two Systems' will be unleashed."

Rather a long-winded way to say "Shut up and work, peasants".