Excerpt:
]]>Wang believes that the chance that Hainan will become another Hong Kong or another Hawaii is “very slim, if any at all.”
The key restriction, as usual, is political: there can be only so much ‘freedom’ of anything under the omnipresent party that has to control everything.
“Hainan cannot copy the critical advantages of Hong Kong without a fundamental political transformation [of China]: A well-established rule of law that protects property rights; individual freedoms; enforcement of contracts; and a good relationship with the West and the US in particular. The rest is just add-ons,” Wang said.