It’s just common sense. In recent years, the government there has become markedly less friendly to foreign businesses. One example is its greater willingness to invade cellphone privacy.
So foreign-based companies have been telling employees traveling to the city or working there to power down the information-packed smart phones that they usually rely on and to instead, while there, resort to cheap throwaway phones. Firms have long suggested the same to personnel who do business in mainland China.
The Financial Times reports (November 27, 2023):
Deloitte and KPMG have advised some US-based executives not to use their usual work phones in the territory, according to multiple people with knowledge of the policies. Several McKinsey consultants have also taken separate phones when travelling to the territory, the people said….
Some companies in industries such as aerospace and semiconductors have for years asked employees to take separate phones and laptops to mainland China over security concerns. The application of the same approach in Hong Kong—a city that hosts the Asia-Pacific headquarters of many global companies—by a broader spectrum of businesses comes as Beijing has increased its control over the territory and people return after the end of lockdown restrictions.
Perfect privacy is elusive, especially when the bureaucrats and politicians seeking to invade your privacy have zero scruples. In February 2023, the government required all SIM cards being used in Hong Kong to be registered in a real name. Even so, visiting businessmen can use burner phones, virtual private networks, and other security measures to render surveillance as fruitless as possible.
Or businesses can just stop doing business Hong Kong.
This alternative has become increasingly popular, according to The Wall Street Journal. The “first smattering of departures” of U.S. companies has turned into a “broad retreat,” with fewer and fewer operating in the city. The number “has fallen for four years in a row, by Hong Kong’s count, hitting 1,258 in June 2022, the fewest since 2004. Last year, mainland Chinese companies with regional headquarters in Hong Kong outnumbered American ones for the first time in at least three decades.”
See also:
Verfassungsblog: “Hong Kong Surveillance Law From 9/11 to the NSL”
“The Chief Executive may directly order the intercept of communications or covert surveillance of any individual…. The Commissioner for Interception and Surveillance has no oversight over these authorizations, and the authorizations are not legally reviewable.”
