Hong KongHong Kong exists, as writer Han Suyin put it in the 1950s, “on borrowed time in a borrowed place.” Throughout its history, the city has been a bargaining chip in negotiations, its fate decided by other powers, each treaty setting out new expiration dates. Its identity is laced with unease about the city’s inevitable end as we locals know it, with our powerlessness in the face of time.

There was the countdown to 1997, when Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule after 150 years as a British colony. Britain and China had agreed in 1984 that after the handover, Hong Kong would be guaranteed its capitalist lifestyle and freedoms for 50 years. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square