TL;DR: Stephen Roach just doubled down: the Hong Kong you remember is finished. Not the city — the idea of it. And the most honest evidence isn't the Hang Seng Index. It's 1.175 billion outbound trips per year, and a restaurant owner standing in an empty doorway at 8 PM on a Saturday.
I am James, CEO of Mercury Technology Solutions.
From my office in Cyberport, looking across the Lamma Channel — July 2026.
The Man Who Said the Quiet Part Out Loud
Two and a half years ago, Stephen Roach — former Morgan Stanley Asia chairman, once considered one of China's biggest cheerleaders — wrote a piece in the Financial Times titled "It pains me to say Hong Kong is over."
You remember the fallout. Hong Kong's political and business establishment mobilized to refute him. Commentators lined up to prove him wrong. The Hang Seng was down, sure, but "Hong Kong is over"? How dare he.
Two days ago, on July 25, Roach published a follow-up on Substack: "Yes, the Hong Kong of Old is Over."
This time he was clearer. He wasn't saying the city had vanished. He was saying the Hong Kong we knew — the one built on a specific set of assumptions about autonomy, arbitrage, and intermediation — was gone. He even used the Mandarin pinyin deliberately: Xiānggǎng. His closing line: "The Hong Kong of old is, indeed, over. Go to Xiānggǎng and see for yourself."
He addressed every counterargument. The Hang Seng rebound. Hong Kong reclaiming the global IPO crown. He knew all of it. And he dismissed it. Surface metrics, he argued, don't prove the old Hong Kong is back — especially when the recovery is increasingly driven by mainland enterprises, mainland capital, and central policy.
But I'm not here to litigate macroeconomics or politics.
I'm here to tell you about a night I can't forget.
December 2023. Tai Kok Tsui. 8 PM.
When I first read Roach's February 2024 article, my mind didn't go to trade balances or IPO volumes.
It went to a freezing Saturday night six weeks earlier.
I'd gone to Tai Kok Tsui's food street on impulse. 7:30, maybe 8 PM — prime dining hours. The kind of time when every table should be full, when you should have to queue for twenty minutes just to get a seat.
The street was silent.
I walked past a newly reopened Chinese restaurant. The chef — also the owner — stood in the doorway, looking desperate. Pulling customers in like his life depended on it. Which, of course, it did.
I looked inside. Not a single customer.
He pitched me hard. I thought, fine, help a Hong Konger out. Sat down, ordered a dish. Thirty minutes. From start to finish, besides me, one other table showed up.
That feeling — the emptiness, the owner standing in the cold, the silence where there should have been noise — I still remember it.
The Numbers Don't Lie
During COVID, before full border reopening, Hong Kong people had nowhere to go. Consumption was trapped locally by default. But after the 2023 full reopening, everything changed.
Hong Kong residents outbound trips:
| Year | Total Outbound Trips | |------|---------------------| | 2023 | 72.2 million | | 2024 | 104.7 million (+45% YoY) | | 2025 | 117.5 million | | 2026 H1 | 61.8 million (6 months) |
And it's not just holiday seasons. In 2025, every single month saw higher outbound departures than the same month in 2024.
December — the month I remember:
| Year | December Departures | |------|---------------------| | 2023 | 7.48 million | | 2024 | 10.31 million | | 2025 | 11.42 million |
In two years, December departures jumped over 50%.
Even compared to pre-COVID, 2024 was already elevated. Government statistics show land border crossings — Lo Wu, Lok Ma Chau Spur Line, Shenzhen Bay — had fully recovered.
The Real Shift
Here's what I think the deepest change is. It's not the Hang Seng. It's not IPO rankings.
It's that Hong Kong people have changed how they choose to spend their time.
Before, a long weekend meant Causeway Bay shopping, Tsim Sha Tsui dinner, Mong Kok cinema. Today, the first thought for many is: where should I go? — with the implicit assumption that the answer is not here.
Tourists still come in. The Hang Seng can rally. IPOs can top global rankings.
But whether a city is still itself — I've always believed you can't judge that from financial headlines alone.
Sometimes the most honest answer is Saturday night, 7 or 8 PM, walking down a street that used to be packed, and seeing what's left.
What People Do With Their Money
Roach's "The Hong Kong of Old is Over" — you can disagree with it. Many will.
But I don't need to watch the Hang Seng to know whether this city's economy is hot or cold.
If things were as prosperous as the headlines claim, Benny Lee — a man whose entire business model is investing in Hong Kong street shops, whose stated life goal is to own 1,000 of them — wouldn't be slashing prices and selling at losses right now.
Numbers can be interpreted many ways. But what people do with real money is the most honest signal of all.
Mercury Technology Solutions: Accelerate Digitality.
