Yale school of management prof Jeffrey Garten writes in today’s FT that a Beijing-led financial-services partnership between Hong Kong and Shanghai (Shangkong, the headline writer says) could provide serious competition to New York and London as a global financial capital.
“Beijing could declare that Shanghai and Hong Kong will have a common set of regulations and recruit some of the world’s best financiers to bolster its regulatory structures — perhaps luring them with an advantageous tax regime no longer possible in the west,” Garten writes.
Shangkong already may have one advantage. In New York and London, “budget deficits will be gigantic, resulting in higher taxes and cutbacks in public investment in the kinds of services … that attract talent.” Garten mentions transportation first on his list of such services.