Editor's Note: In 2019, most Hong Kongers officially broke with Beijing over its broken promises. Five years have passed in the blink of an eye, and Hong Kong's current situation has strayed further and further from the expectations of the international community. Hong Kong has gone from embracing universal values to being completely hostile to Western values. In the eyes of developed Western countries, Hong Kong has become completely different and is no longer considered a mainstream member of the international community. What is Hong Kong's future? Is there any hope of returning to its former glory days? Throughout human history since World War II, similar situations abound. Shanghai, Vietnam, Iran, and even more recently, Venezuela—their declines share a common thread: a relatively civilized, free, and internationally connected city/country suddenly fell under the control of an authoritarian regime. Mr. Zhang Kunyang participated in the anti-extradition bill movement in 2019 and came to the United States in 2020. After completing his master's degree at Johns Hopkins University in Washington , he worked as a researcher at the think tank Jamestown Foundation. Drawing on international relations and historical trajectories, Mr. Zhang predicts what Hong Kong will look like in the next decade or so after decoupling from Western civilization.
Over the past decade, the Venezuela we have seen on television has been a chaotic place, with unemployment, crime, and anti-government demonstrations occurring every day.
In 1999, when former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez came to power, one US dollar bought about 570 bolivars . Less than 20 years later, in 2018, a kilogram of cheese for the locals' beloved empanadas cost 7.5 million bolivars , equivalent to only about one US dollar. Even if you 're smarter than Carrie Lam, you'll still have to shell out over 2.6 million bolivars for a roll of toilet paper .
If you can only use cash, the stack of banknotes will definitely be larger than that roll of toilet paper. This is a reflection of Venezuela's hyperinflation. Since 2015, one in four Venezuelans has decided to leave , and more than seven million people have been dispersed, nearly the entire population of Hong Kong.
