The Hang Seng Index (HSI)–the main Hong Kong market index–hit a new low since 2009 after the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), although some Hong Kong observers predicted that the congress would have been good for the HSI in the short term.
The congress has many worrying signals. It resolved that the party constitution should explicitly state the “core position” of Xi Jinping in the party and its central committee, as well as the “guiding position” of Xi’s thoughts on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. What is more, Xi was named “people’s leader” for the first time since Mao Zedong and Hua Guofeng. In other words, the CCP, which had vowed not to engage in a personal cult again after the Cultural Revolution, broke its own word on the excuse of “the common wish of the whole nation.”…