HONG KONG

THEY ARE WORRIED about America, no doubt about it. “It looks like your new president can actually chew gum and walk at the same time! Obama is perceived extremely enthusiastically in Hong Kong,” opines David Dodwell, CEO of the consulting firm Strategic Access here. “But the danger is that expectations for him are so high. If in a year’s time the much-vaunted U.S. recovery hasn’t happened and the awesome costs of rescue are becoming clear, then the burden of domestic policy pressures may force difficult and unpleasant developments on trade and protection, and on China in particular.”

Dodwell, a career journalist based in Hong Kong, was articulating the concern of a small group of Hong Kong enthusiasts attending a special Vision 2047 Foundation breakfast-thought-session at the Hong Kong Club. It seems as if they are as agitated today as they were in 1997 — but not about the same thing.

In 1997, Hong Kong was converted, via peaceful negotiation between London and Beijing, from a British colony to a special administration region of China. Hong Kong’s patriots were worried then that the transformation might work to undermine this territory’s economic vitality and entrepreneurial identity. But that looks not to have happened.

A dozen years later — and in the wake of last year’s near-meltdown of the global financial system — the worry here is less about what China will do than what America will do. The worry is that the Obama recovery will fail and angry historic American protectionism will resurface to harm Hong Kong’s economy. “This is no time to cave in to demands for protectionist measures,” argued the South China Morning Post, the region’s respected English-language newspaper. Protecting local industries through levies, surcharges, tariffs and tit-for-tat measures is good for a government’s image at home, but breaks down a system [of international trade] that has served the world well.”

Many in Hong Kong worry because it is not in their interest for America to stumble big-time. They know that all power requires countervailing power to stay proportionate and remain stable. The world needs both China and the United States to move forward with care, steadiness and responsibility on the global stage. Should either one lose its balance, get in over its head or (heaven forbid) lose its head, the world would not be suddenly flat, but suddenly very topsy-turvy.

Would China’s behavior toward Hong Kong continue to be mainly thoughtful and managerial rather than petulant and tyrannical if there were no super United States hovering as the countervailing power? That’s the quiet worry of many in Hong Kong.

Perched as the glittering mainland outpost of East meets West on the southern tip of mainland China, Hong Kong routinely does business with the Occident while maintaining the identity of the Orient. Humming with energy and purpose, it is set smack dab in the middle of world history, on the cusp of the dramatic rise of China and the somewhat unsettling repositioning of the United States into some new status as yet undefined.

Hong Kong’s stake in how this all sorts out is obvious. But it sometimes acts, hilariously, as if the only issues of consequence are its own little petty fights. The local legislature here more often reminds one of a clueless American city council than a major political organ operating in one of the most famous metropolises on earth.

It may be (to psychoanalyze Hong Kong a bit) that Hong Kong prefers to focus on the little local issues over which it has some control, rather than worry about the larger world issues over which it knows it has so little control.

What’s fascinating and profoundly significant is how the focus of Hong Kong’s worry has moved from what had seemed the most worrisome variable (Beijing) to what had once seemed the rock of ages (Washington). This is why the focus is on Barack Hussein Obama: the performance of his administration is perceived as central to the territory’s fate.

Hong Kongers are and have always been to the commercial pursuit of profit as monkeys are and have always been to the acquisition of bananas: They just cannot get enough. This single-mindedness is so deliciously self-interested that their worry about the American economy is worth noting carefully. In effect, they are experts on this kind of issue. They are mainly rooting for Obama to succeed and for the American economy to right itself quickly.

That is right: With the probable exception of some crusty cadres of old hopeless Communist codgers holed up in Beijing, who really wants to root for America to decline and fall like some stuffed and outdated dinosaur?

Back in the States, Americans who believe foreigners sit around laughing at us and hoping to watch us fall on our duffs over and over again really need to get out more and travel.

Tom Plate, a frequent contributor, is an editor and foreign correspondent, specializing in Asian affairs.