Housing prices seen as hidden cause behind protests
Housing prices to blame for residents taking to the streets
Two million people plugged the streets of Hong Kong on June 16, estimated the protest organizers, while the police said there were 338,000 protesters on the agreed procession route. Tallies aside, framing these overcrowded streets were overcrowded homes.
The protests in Hong Kong this spring and summer appear to be caused solely by a proposed extradition law. In February, the city’s security bureau submitted a paper to the legislature, proposing an amendment that would enable Hong Kong to extradite fugitives to countries — including China — with which the city does not have extradition treaties. To some Hongkongers, the bill represents China wielding control over Hong Kong, which is an entity of China but has its own currency, Olympic teams and seat at the World Trade Organization.
However, some observers say Hongkongers tend to be uninvolved in Chinese politics, and it is unlikely that a 14-page bill alone ignited a quarter of the population into the marathon of mobs seen in the past month. Rather, they say the uprising is also about a local issue: housing.
“There is nowhere to go except smaller and smaller properties that at some point become inhuman,” says Cherian George, a professor of media studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. “The failure that has led to the current situation is really a failure of the Hong Kong government, the unaffordable cost of living, and that really is the most important factor.”
Hong Kong has the world’s most expensive real estate market. The average property costs nearly $1.6 million, according to an annual global report by the American real estate firm CBRE.
The wait-list for public housing is 5.5 years, while many other apartments are not fire-safe. A 2016 census showed that more than 200,000 Hongkongers live in subdivided flats, and such flats often have per-person dimensions not much larger than the area of a ping-pong table.
Many young Hongkongers have no hope for a livable home, and in a city where the leader is not democratically elected, they cannot vote out their government. The extradition bill introduced in February sparked fear of Chinese interference in Hong Kong’s justice system, but most people in the city do not immediately need protection from extradition; they need a place to live.
“It’s not as if the Hongkongers started getting more and more politicized and more and more radicalized primarily because of ideology or because of Beijing,” says George. “(The government) created a situation where they’ve ignored housing policy for too long and did not pay the political price.”
George is from Singapore, the second most expensive housing market according to the CBRE report, but Singaporeans elect their government. In 2014, Hongkongers called for electoral reform with a series of protests known as the “umbrella revolution.” George says they would have been less likely to call for reform if they had livable homes, as they otherwise enjoy a remarkably well-run city.
Kacey Wong, 49, is a protester who does own his home, but he says most “youngsters” can never expect the same. He says he is partly protesting against the extradition bill and partly protesting against the government’s failure to deliver a decent quality of life to most Hongkongers.
“The government is like a vending machine,” Wong says after his sixth day of protests. “Sometimes you put money in there, and you want to buy potato chips, and you get stuck, and potato chips don’t fall down, so what do you do? You give the machine a slap.”
Hongkongers have not traditionally protested against Chinese interference. In the 1970s, most students demanded unity with China and successfully protested to make Chinese an official language in the city, rather than solely English.
This tradition changed in the early 2000s, when nearly 500,000 people showed up at one protest against a bill that would have prohibited treason and theft of state secrets against the Chinese government. The bill did not pass. Students also criticized an ordinance that limits their legal right to protest, mandating that a protest of more than 50 people be cleared with the police commissioner. In May 2002, the Hong Kong Federation of Students criticized this law by distributing 10,000 copies of a booklet titled, My Sassy Ordinance (the ordinance remained in place).
Scott Romaniuk, a post-doctoral fellow at the China Institute at the University of Alberta, describes the extradition bill as the primary target, with housing being a secondary issue. “Young people are furious, of course, with Beijing’s ‘meddling’ in their world,” he writes in an email. At the same time, he says they are also angry at the neglect of other civil liberties, including the right to a dignified standard of living.
The fury led protesters to break into the legislature on July 1. Wong was not part of the intrusion, but he says the demonstrators had the civility to preserve the artwork inside. Outside the legislature, teenagers handed out saran wrap to protect people’s skin from tear gas, says Wong. He wore long-sleeves, gloves and a face mask, and during one protest, he gave up his umbrella to his peers on the front line.
“I’m fighting a war I cannot win,” he says, “but I’m trying to fight it gracefully.”
(The government) created a situation where they’ve ignored housing policy for too long and did not pay the political price.