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Hong Kong Remains Key to China's Economy and Is an Important Symbol of a Unified China

• While Hong Kong has become far less important to China in absolute economic terms, the two entities are gradually developing an integrated economy, and Hong Kong remains key to China's international trade and investment.
• Although Hong Kong has lost its status as a crucial economic intermediary between China and Taiwan, it has acquired great political importance as a concrete symbol of national unification.

Beijing Will Find It Difficult to Placate Hong Kong's Grassroots Opposition Movement

• The 2014 movements remind observers that Hong Kongese possess deep feelings of civic pride and underscored the sense that the Special Administrative Region's citizens possess a separate and distinct identity from their kin who live on the mainland.
• The continued political disaffection in Hong Kong poses a real dilemma for Beijing.

Effects of 2014 Protests Have Limited Short-Term Effects on the Hong Kong Economy, but Long-Term Effects of Business Confidence Is at Stake

• Although officials from both mainland China and Hong Kong warned at an early stage that the protests could bring economic disaster for Hong Kong, data show that the protests had little effect on the SAR's economy.
• Fundamentally, what is at stake in Hong Kong is business confidence — a fragile and potentially volatile sentiment in any economy.

Possible Political Outcomes for Hong Kong, from Most Likely to Least Likely, Are Status Quo Ante, Ritual Democracy, Repression, and Democratic Opening