Stop mourning Hong Kong. It’s evolving, not dying

Hong Kong has changed since the turmoil of 2019-20. Few people would dispute this. The more important question is what kind of city it is becoming.It is evolving into a more nationally integrated yet still distinctive city. The emerging model seeks to combine market dynamism and international connectivity with clearer alignment to national development. This is not decline. It is a search for a viable identity and role.Critics such as Stephen Roach have argued that the Hong Kong of old is finished and that the city has become little more than another large Chinese city. The conclusion rests on a particular assumption: that sharp political and institutional change, especially when it compresses earlier expectations of autonomy, amounts to the end of the place itself. This assumption is selective.