Stephen S. Roach argues that the Hong Kong many investors and residents once recognized has fundamentally changed. In his latest commentary, he pushes back on claims that the city’s recent financial successes prove its old strengths are fully intact.
Supporters of the current order have pointed to Hong Kong’s return to the top of the global IPO rankings as evidence of resilience. Roach suggests that this single measure tells only part of the story and leaves out broader concerns about what the city has become.
The central idea of the piece is that headline market performance cannot, by itself, restore Hong Kong’s former identity. Even if the city remains a major fundraising center, Roach indicates that deeper political and institutional shifts have altered the character that once set it apart.
His assessment frames Hong Kong’s rebound in finance as real but incomplete. The article presents a more skeptical view of the city’s trajectory, arguing that strong IPO numbers do not erase the larger transformation behind the end of what he calls the Hong Kong of old.
