A blow to liberty: Hong Kong is no longer No. 1 in economic freedom

series on PBS in the 1980s that celebrated the territory’s economic freedoms, and the data we collected reflected what we saw on the show. Compared with 40-53% income tax rates in the United States, the top rate in Hong Kong was just 17-25%. Relative to GDP, Hong Kong’s welfare state spent just a fifth of what the US spends. Aligned with the free-trade views of Adam Smith, Hong Kong’s tariffs were literally 0%.

After the Chinese takeover of the territory from the United Kingdom in 1997, little seemed to change in Hong Kong in terms of the EFW index. Taxes and regulations remained low and trade with the rest of the world remained free. Hong Kong’s global-best EFW index score bounced around between 8.9 and 9.3 throughout the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and into the 2010s.

Still, many observers worried about China’s longer-term commitment to the “one country, two systems” policy. After Hong Kong businessman Jimmy Lai was forced to sell his Asian clothing business because of his criticisms of Chinese leader Li Peng, Mr. Lai created themedia company to advocate for more political freedom in Hong Kong.

We first sounded the alarm in the 2020 edition of the EFW index as a result of the new security law imposed that year by the Chinese government without the consent of Hong Kong’s elected legislative body. The new law features potential sentences of life imprisonment for an open-ended array of speech and thought crimes that the mainland doesn’t like. Mr. Lai was promptly arrested under this law and after a brief show trial, he is now serving a 5-year sentence.

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