最新一期美國《新聞周刊》（The Newsweek）刊文說，當中國決心捧上海為紐約，香港剩下的優勢已不多，如不能另尋定位，將來難免會如前總理朱鎔基所說，淪落為中國的多倫多。
這篇題為《香港將成明日黃花？》（Will Hong Kong Become a Has-Been？）的文章說，亞洲最近流行一個話題：中國當局決心把上海捧為國際金融中心，香港的角色和地位很可能會成為明日黃花。
文章說，盡管在全球金融海嘯中，香港的金融體係因較少沾手CDS等稀奇古怪的衍生工具，而沒有受到太大的損傷。然而，人們對香港前景的負麵看法，並非基於市場的理由，而是出於政策方麵的原因－－中國國務院在4月明確宣布，將致力在2020年之前，把上海打造為國際金融中心；5月，國務院總理溫家寶警告，香港的金融中心地位是“不進則退”。
對於香港人來說，這是令人心寒的消息。因為來自內地的企業占了香港股市總市值的60%，每天總成交額的70%也是來自這批企業，更甚的是，它們當中不少是大型的國企，因此中國當局很容易就可以下令，讓這些企業轉移到上海去掛牌。
中國希望打造上海成為國際金融中心，並非始自今日，早在上世紀90年代初已有過同樣的嚐試，但當時內地的金融資本製度還不夠成熟，所以未竟全功。到了今天，滬深等股票市場已經更為完善，國企的股票更容易買賣，政府開始發行更多債券，人民幣逐漸邁向自由流通，將可加強中國在外匯交易中的地位，而上海的銀行亦已從香港處學到了夠多的經驗。
與此同時，中國可以容許市場製度逐漸成熟，卻不能容忍市場出現失控，所以北京政府歡迎的交易者不單單是要夠實力（competent）的，更加是要能夠順從（compliant）的。要在上海達到這一目標，當然是比在香港去做更加得心應手，因為香港的遊戲規則向來是以西方法製為基礎。而在金融海嘯肆虐的今天，全世界都傾向於中國的金融管製模式，中國自然就更有底氣去嫌棄這個英式自由市場資本主義的東方堡迭。
因此，香港需要為自己尋找新的角色，而這並不是陌生的事。因為在近50年來，香港就經曆了由生產塑膠花（等低技術產品）的地方，轉變為更高技術的製造業中心，再轉變為環球金融中心。當然，作為金融中心，香港目前仍有自己的優勢，包括完全自由流通的貨幣；而香港的主政者亦已意識到危機，例如最近任命了來自內地的李小加為港交所CEO，就是香港仍在奮力自強的一個例子。
然而，當北京政府有了主意，答案就是顯而易見的。因此香港的機遇將在於開發新的產業，包括為內地企業提供顧問服務，協助它們向海外擴張；或者是作為教育樞紐，為內地以至亞洲的企業輸出大量MBA學生。無論如何，香港都需要麵對政府治理和既得利益者等問題的挑戰。近年不少人都批評，香港的大富豪可以隨意改動市場條例，以配合自己的利益；而雷曼債券事件在香港爆發，導致大批投資者失去畢生積蓄，亦敲響了另一個警號。
文章認為，香港的最後一個優勢，是人們始終認同這是一個管治妥當、可以公平競爭的地方。如果連這點都不能保持，將來在上海成為中國的紐約之時，香港難免會如前總理朱鎔基所說，淪落為中國的多倫多。
Will Hong Kong Become a Has-Been?
There has been buzz lately in Asia that Hong Kong may become a has-been. As the global financial crisis gathered speed last year, Hong Kong looked relatively well insulated from the crashing markets because its banks were not heavily exposed to credit default swaps and all those other funky instruments. But the buzz is about changing politics, not markets. In April, Chinese officials announced firmly that they would like to see Shanghai become a global financial center by 2020; in the same month, Premier Wen Jiabao warned that Hong Kong must raise its game or face decline. The news was chilling for many in Hong Kong, which serves as a gateway to China for investors and is almost entirely dependent on financial services. Some 60 percent of the market capitalization of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and more than 70 percent of its daily trading is in shares of Chinese mainland firms. Many of these are large state-run enterprises—the sort that leaders in Beijing could very easily order to trade in Shanghai instead.
Beijing pushed for Shanghai to play a bigger role as a financial center back in the early 1990s. But it didn't take off then because Chinese financial capitalism was still relatively immature. Now the mainland markets in Shanghai as well as Shenzhen are more developed, major Shanghai banks having learned a lot from the experience of Hong Kong.
Shares in state-owned firms can be more freely traded, and the government is looking to create new kinds of securities. In the coming years, Beijing is expected to allow the yuan to trade more freely, which could give it a major role in international currency trading. But to allow markets to mature without completely losing control over them, Beijing needs traders that are competent, but also compliant—the sort it can reach and influence more easily in Shanghai than in Hong Kong, where market rules are still based on foreign law.
Chinese officials are also beefing up banking in Beijing, but given Shanghai's historic position as a trading center and its broader reach in finance, it will likely remain the country's key city of commerce. What's more, the fact that the Shanghai faction in government lost power a few years back when a number of politicians were taken down for corruption means that Beijing can now better police and direct the city's future development.
Finally, like most financial centers at the moment, Hong Kong is in a drastically weakened state. Amid the global crash, Hong Kong's economy contracted by 7.8 percent in the first quarter of 2009, even as China's GDP as a whole continued to grow. Now that the entire world is tipping toward Beijing's model of state regulation, China may feel emboldened to sideline this eastern redoubt of British free-market capitalism.
So Hong Kong is searching for a new role once again. The city has adapted before—it went from selling plastic flowers 50 years ago to higher levels of manufacturing to being a global financial capital. It still has the advantage of a fully convertible currency, as well as rule of law, which remains unreliable on the mainland. And last week's announcement that Charles Li, a JPMorgan banker with strong ties to the mainland, would take charge of the exchange in January was a sign that Hong Kong is trying hard to bolster its position. But with at least some of its old business likely to move to Shanghai and Beijing, the city needs to move beyond trading, and leaders know it. Speaking to the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong recently, the city's current stock-exchange chief, Paul Chow, acknowledged the challenge. ÒLook back over the past five years, and compare the state of [the] mainland China market in 2003 to the current state. Substantial improvements. And what will happen in the next five years? Ten years?Ó
If Beijing has its way, the answer is clear. Yet there are still opportunities for Hong Kong to rebrand itself, perhaps as a provider of consulting services to Chinese businesses—helping less-sophisticated enterprises from the mainland figure out how to sell themselves to an international audience as they expand abroad, or as an education hub, churning out M.B.A.s to work in top Chinese and Asian businesses. Either way, it will need to deal with some of the governance problems and issues of vested interests that have plagued it in recent years. Critics say Asian tycoons are able to bend market regulations to suit their whims here, and the city has yet to deal properly with its recent minibond scandal, in which many individual investors lost their life savings after unwittingly buying Lehman Brothers' bonds through intermediaries. One of the last remaining advantages Hong Kong holds is the perception that it's still a fairer, better-governed financial capital than Shanghai. If it can't hold on to that, it will surely become, as former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji predicted a few years back, Toronto to Shanghai's New York.
Foroohar is International Business Editor.
