A debate continues to rage across media and political circles as to whether the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China is “finished” as a showcase global financial, trade and economic center in Asia.

Since the implementation of the National Security Law for Hong Kong (NSL) in 2020, the Western mainstream media have routinely pushed such narratives, largely out of political motivations, as they have long decided on this prior conclusion because of their strong desire to see the city fail as a means of getting at China.

However, in addition to this, the debate has recently received increasing attention thanks to economist Stephen Roach, now a senior fellow at Yale, who back in February penned an op-ed in the Financial Times titled: It Pains Me to Say Hong Kong is Over.

Now, Roach is not an anti-China figure seeking to push unrest in the city, as he actually has skin in the game, having spent time in Hong Kong himself.

He nonetheless has repeatedly doubled down on his pessimistic perspective in these ongoing debates, largely from an economic point of view, espousing the theory that geopolitical tensions and the NSL have ruined opportunities in the city.

All this data suggests that with the legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors behind it, Hong Kong is making an economic recovery in 2024 and, contrary to deliberate Western media negativity, is rekindling itself as an attractive investment destination

It is likewise popular in the media as a whole to misleadingly tout Singapore as an alternative.

First of all, Hong Kong’s economy is nowhere near as negative as such coverage would have one believe, even if the city has undergone economic turbulence in the past few years with successive global crises that have impacted it directly. As a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit notes: “Preliminary GDP figures show Hong Kong’s real GDP grew by 3.2 percent in 2023, with fourth-quarter GDP up by 4.3 percent year-on-year.” For 2024, growth is forecast as being between 2.5 to 3.5 percent, which will be largely powered by consumption. For a high-income developed economy, this is a positive figure which is in a much better state than that of major developed economies, such as the United Kingdom or the Eurozone.

Secondly, there are signs that investment conditions in Hong Kong are improving. After the launch of the Wealth Management Connect program in September 2021, which allows those living in nine cities in Guangdong province to buy investment products in Hong Kong and Macao, capital inflows through this channel have boomed. In April alone, inflows increased 70.5 percent from the preceding month to 22.3 billion yuan ($3.08 billion). Similarly, new account openings in the city from mainland residents have finally surpassed the pre-COVID-19 and pre-2019 riots levels. Total inquiries for investment in Hong Kong, from Southeast Asian clients, have increased by 85 percent.

Similarly, new listings on Hong Kong’s stock markets for initial public offerings have also rebounded significantly. As reported by the South China Morning Post: “70 new IPO applications have been submitted this year, 46 percent higher than the second half of last year.” As accounting firm Ernst & Young notes: “In Q2 2024, especially since May, as the Hong Kong stock market rebounded, liquidity and other market indicators improved, boosting investor confidence. The number of deals and proceeds in Q2 were up 33 percent and 52 percent quarter-on-quarter respectively,” adding, “Hong Kong’s IPO market has shown signs of rebound, filings seeing significant increase.”

Even the Financial Times, the Nikkei-owned newspaper that is notorious for its extreme negativity pertaining to all things China, was forced to conclude that Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was “the best-performing major index globally in April”. CNN came to the same conclusion, noting: “Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index surged more than 7 percent in April as the best-performing major index in the world. It’s now heading into a bull market, rebounding nearly 20 percent from its January low.”

All this data suggests that with the legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors behind it, Hong Kong is making an economic recovery in 2024 and, contrary to deliberate Western media negativity, is rekindling itself as an attractive investment destination. Despite geopolitical tensions, it also demonstrates that Hong Kong’s position within Asia has not diminished and even as politically motivated attacks on the city continue from the British and American media, it has found new opportunities in increased economic integration with the Chinese mainland and Southeast Asia.

So, is Hong Kong finished? Don’t bet on it. We should expect geopolitical tensions, especially economic and trade tensions between China and the United States, to continue to be a factor of uncertainty. However, it is clear the city is capable of preserving its position by carving out new opportunities.

The author is a British political and international-relations analyst.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.