It was a predictable outcome of Hong Kong’s enactment of the Article 23 legislation, or the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, that the Western media responded by proclaiming the end of the city as an international financial center and business hub.

A recent editorial in the pro-US-establishment Wall Street Journal was headlined: Hong Kong’s Giant Leap Backward; and the leading story broadcast on the BBC World Service on Monday began: “Security law brings Hong Kong’s future as business hub into question”. According to both these reports, among numerous others, the Article 23 legislation somehow makes Hong Kong “uninvestable” simply because it caters to the issue of national security and guards against “foreign influence”.

For me, it is a huge irony and reminiscent of rank hypocrisy, as on Monday the United Kingdom was to pass a sweeping national security bill that will strengthen intelligence agencies’ abilities to collect and intercept data from communications and force companies to comply. Yet none of that clear sense of double standards deflects from the narrative that the consideration of national security in Hong Kong is somehow “bad for business”. Are we going to pretend that chaos, riots and foreign-backed insurrection are in fact, good for business?

Each and every time, it appears that there is a predetermined conclusion and narrative concerning Hong Kong by the Western media that wishes it will fail. In other words, the outcome they are gambling for, the demise of the city as a financial center, is something they do not simply fear will happen but as a matter of fact, want to happen. It is intentional; hence the BBC even goes to the absurdity in its report to claim international companies have an “anywhere but China” investment policy. In reality, the Western mainstream media, in conjunction with governments such as the United States, have sought to deliberately and intentionally undermine China as a prospective market by a number of means.

Each and every time, it appears that there is a predetermined conclusion and narrative concerning Hong Kong by the Western media that wishes it will fail. In other words, the outcome they are gambling for, the demise of the city as a financial center, is something they do not simply fear will happen but as a matter of fact, want to happen

A recent Reuters report detailed inasmuch how then-US president Donald Trump commanded the CIA to wage a negative publicity war against China, proving this is not really a conspiracy theory or speculation, but is actually happening. Thus, every single development or thing that is done in China or the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is subsequently used by the Western mainstream media to push the respective arguments: This is why businesses shouldn’t invest; this is why supply chains should leave; this is why Hong Kong in particular is finished as a financial center.

Because the agenda and conclusions are already predetermined, there is minimal pretense of objectivity in such works, because the aim is to comprehensively undermine confidence in China.

Therefore, when discussing Hong Kong, the questions are not, “Has the national security law achieved peace and stability in the city?”, “Was the status quo really tenable with the scale of the riots?”, or “Is normal life back on track?”

Instead, the narrative is skewed exclusively to framing the city as an oppressive dystopia — whereby the enactment of these laws is detrimental to its role as an international financial center — and painting Hong Kong’s future as pessimistically as possible.

In doing so, there is a tendency to deliberately exaggerate the scope and penalties of these laws, as well as the purposes behind them, and to allege that they are “bad for business” in the sense they will randomly, indiscriminately and arbitrarily target anyone for even the smallest of offenses. Thus, as The Wall Street Journal ludicrously claimed, you “enter at your own risk”.

In doing so, it is then claimed that Hong Kong’s legal system no longer adheres to the rule of law, is no longer autonomous, and the necessary context of the city being rocked by riots is completely ignored. In reality, these laws are focused on this extremely violent, foreign-backed ideology that reduced the city to chaos, and for a good reason. I’ve asked this numerous times — would this behavior be tolerated by authorities anywhere else in the world? And are we going to pretend that other countries do not have national security, anti-terrorism, subversion and treason laws? Why are there such double standards in respect to this?

It’s as if the West all along sees Hong Kong only as an ideological playground in which to undermine China.

Portraying events in the city like this is not the best way to promote its interests.

The author is a British political and international relations analyst.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.