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Island mentality no market

The finding that more than 80 percent of Hong Kong tertiary students are willing to work on the mainland should have dealt a heavy blow to the few nativists who recently spared no effort to promote an island mentality in the city.

The results of the Hong Kong United Youth Association (HKUYA) survey have brought these politically motivated nativists back to reality: Island mentality has no market in Hong Kong, particularly among our elite youth.

This island mentality, which specifically aims at the Chinese mainland, will bring great havoc to Hong Kong's economy if it prevails, as suggested by many academics and economists in the city.

Hong Kong prides itself on being an international finance, trade and logistics center. An international finance hub doesn't emerge from thin air. New York, London and Singapore become the world's few by serving the needs of the American, European and Southeast Asian markets, respectively. And Hong Kong would have never been Hong Kong without the huge mainland market to serve.

Over the years, the city has developed into an international trade and finance center from a small fishing village by serving first as a trading hub between the mainland and other parts of the world and then as a finance hub bridging both ends of the capital chain - the demand and supply sides of international capital.

Economic cooperation and integration between the two sides has been further strengthened after the handover of sovereignty in 1997 and as the economic growth has gained pace on the mainland over the past decade. For one, Hong Kong topped the world's IPO markets in the three years to 2011, thanks to the numerous fund-raising activities of mainland companies which now already account for nearly 60 percent of the total capitalization of the local stock market.

Both Hong Kong and the mainland have benefited significantly from the economic cooperation and integration. The continuously strong growth of the mainland economy and its further opening up promises more opportunities for Hong Kong in the future.

While respondents of the HKUYA survey now see brighter career prospects on the mainland than in Hong Kong, many Hong Kong entrepreneurs have long found that there are much more promising business opportunities across the border. The reasons are obvious. But nativists choose to ignore the unseverable relationship and the unstoppable integration between the mainland and Hong Kong just for the sake of their illusion of a "Hong Kong state".

The author is a current affairs commentator.

(HK Edition 06/04/2013 page1)