As China-US ties worsen, Hong Kong bankers fear for their careers

It was supposed to be a big celebration for Hong Kong. This week’s Global Financial Leaders' Investment Summit, organized by the city’s central bank, was meant to showcase the revival of Hong Kong as Asia’s financial hub, after years of isolation that resulted from stringent Covid controls.
 

But the mood is all gloom and doom. Since China’s Communist Party congress last month, bankers and asset managers I have spoken to are worried. They wonder whether they have viable careers at all.

The defiant tone President Xi Jinping took toward the US got those hardworking financiers scared. Already, strains between the