[LowCountryJoe]

They are liberalizing their policies to embrace markets on the macro level, slowly but surely. This, however, doesn't necessarily mean that they're liberalizing policies at the micro level. Although, they do seem to have internal conflicts between the Beijing school of thought and the Hong Kong school of thought that will be resolved and these changes should affect the microeconomics. I personally think that the remainder of China will move the direction of Hong Kong over time. Everything has its seasons, therefore I disagree with your outlook.

[mabelkitty]

I guess you can say I am too close to the situation? Folks that I worked with in Hong Kong were leaving and none too happy about the hand-over. Taiwan will be the deciding factor, that and their overt flaunting of international trade laws regarding patent and copyright infringement.