Hong Kong border with mainland China to fully reopen to quarantine-free travel by June

Our “World City” international airport is a ghost town
(Click on his mask to go to the article)

By doing this our dear leader, chief executive Carrie Lam, has cemented Hong Kong’s future as GBA vs GFC. That is with the Greater Bay Area rather than as the Global Financial Centre. Looking inwards rather than outwards. Looking to the Belt and Road rather than the Buck and Euro. Though I wonder if it needs to be a binary. Can we be smart enough to become the key finance and services player, the bridge to the west, out of the GBA?

By the way, even with borders “fully reopen” by June, it’s not going to be easy. The front page article above says that a local Chinese phone number will may be needed. For tracking purposes. But you can only get one of those if you have either a company or relatives in China. We have the latter, but for historical reasons we can’t go that route… [LATER: an OR asks about the reasons. I can’t go into the them here, but can say a bit more if you email, link at right]

ADDED: From the comments, people are getting pissed off at our Zero Covid policy. It wasn’t all that long ago that everyone was in favour. Now they’re asking “is it worth it?” And answering “no”. Far as I know China and Hong Kong are the only places in the world still on a zero Covid path. Maybe Iceland too, but can’t be bothered to check…. [Still: Zero Covid resistance in China]. 

China is probably the only country in the world that has the surveillance apparatus capable of going zero Covid. And they’re sucking Hong Kong along. And our Carrie Lam is the willing dupe. Shame on her. But that’s the way of the future. We are Eeyore to Winnie-for-life.

ADDED: A China resident says “under this dude and his henchmen things are going backwards again”