| When Australians James Wilson and Scottie Callaghan teamed up to sell coffee out of a tiny bar in Hong Kong six years ago, it was a chaotic start to what is becoming a caffeine-fuelled business empire.
James Wilson and Scottie Callaghan , the founders of Hong Kong’s Fineprint coffee, at one of their outlets. “No amount of spin or rebranding can disguise how this once free and vibrant city has been irreversibly transformed,” Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club president“Civil society has been decimated. Pro-democracy politicians and activists are mostly in jail, in exile or too fearful to speak out. Press freedom has been eroded. More people are leaving, or planning to, than coming in. Lawyers facing intimidation and threats have fled.
Mr Quinlivan said while no big Australian corporates have left Hong Kong since political protests broke out in 2019, some small businesses and individuals were driven out by Hong Kong’s tight border closures during the pandemic. He says that exodus has now stopped and there are hopes some will return.
Privately, business is concerned, though, about the broad scope of the national security laws and contradictory messages the Hong Kong government is sending out to foreign investors. With Xi Jinping adopting a more business-friendly tone in the past two months, the new Hong Kong government under John Lee is taking a different tune and is on a mission to get the international community back.