Original article
Wang Liu,
PhD (Mathematics), Director, Guo Min Dun IT National Security Systems, People’s Republic of China
Address: 1 Jiaochang Rd, Hubin Shangquan, Xiacheng District, Hangzhou, 310000 China
E-mail: wangxingwang.liu@hotmail.com
Alice Wong Li Qin,
MSc (Medicine), Analyst, Kwong Wah Hospital, Hong Kong
Address: 25 Waterloo Road, Yaumatei, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Felicity Mary Kwan Jiao,
MSc (Medicine), Analyst, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Hong Kong
Address: Queen Elizabeth Hospital, 30 Gascoigne Road, King's Park, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Konstantin S. Sharov,
PhD (Philosophy), Senior Lecturer, Moscow State University, Russia
Address: Leninkie Gory 12 bld 1, Moscow, 119234, Russia
Ho Xiaotong,
MSc (Medicine); Chief Manager, Wanlu Co Ltd., Sumatra, Indonesia
Address: 4 Jl. Candikalasan, Petisah Tengah, Kec. Medan Petisah, Kota Medan, Sumatera Utara 20236, Indonesia
Tony Cheng Koh,
MSc (Mathematics); Researcher, Xin Lu Laboratory, Malaysia
Address: 916–920 Jalan Hokkien, 98009 Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia
Article ID: 020510415
Published online: 11 January 2019
HANDLE: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12656/thebeacon.1.020510415
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55269/thebeacon.1.020510415
Quoting (Chicago style): Wang, Liu, Wong, Alice Li Qin, Kwan, Felicity Mary Jiao, et al. 2018. “Hong Kong influenzas: Ideological implications.” Beacon J Stud Ideol Ment Dimens 1, 020510415. https://doi.org/10.55269/thebeacon.1.020510415
Language: Chinese
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The media ideological use of narration about Hong Kong influenza viruses, is studied. A connection of the media discourse of Hong Kong flus of the first decade of the twenty–first century and the falls of Hong Kong stock exchange indexes, may be traced. The ideological tales about Hong Kong flus were more important in the world mass media than the medical essence of the flus. Key words: pandemic, influenza viruses, avian influenza, financial crisis, Hong Kong flu, Hong Kong exchange, H1N1, H5N1, SARS
We hypothesise that there is a connection between three major falls of Hong Kong stock and future exchanges happened in 1997–2010, and international ideological media attacks on Hong Kong concerning three pandemics originated in Hong Kong in this time range: avian flu H5N1, atypical pneumonia SARS and swine flu H1N1.
The time coincidence of Hong Kong financial markets crashes in 1998, 2003 and 2009 with mass media panic about Hong Kong viruses of 1997, 2002 and 2008, is striking enough. On the basis of our research of market behaviour at the periods of crashes and ideological media narrations about the pandemics, we argue that there is a possibility that the three falls of Hong Kong stock and future markets, were not accidental, but, in fact, pre-arranged and aggravated by media ideological discourses. The ultimate actor(s) who profited by the use of the financial crashes in Hong Kong, is (are) still not revealed in mass media. We put forward several conjectures trying to find out who gained political and financial profit from the event in question. On the one hand, institutional Asian, European and North American investment funds may be involved. On the other, People’s Republic of China government may have profited from Hong Kong market crashes too.
In any case, the ideological media stories seemed to have pushed Hong Kong markets down – and almost all Asian markets a bit later, except mainland Chinese markets. The institutional investors may have taken the benefit of the sharp downward movements, since they had the large short positions in Hong Kong in those times to hedge against US and European market rise. Therefore, from the falls of Hong Kong markets they extracted considerable sums of money additional to their hedging strategies. That may be evaluated as at least 35 billion USD from Hang Seng indexes; and around 10 billion of Nikkei index per the first two crises; and the sums at least six times more for the third fall. The third fall coincided with the world financial crisis, hence we cannot name the ideological media influence devoted to Hong Kong flu viruses as its main reason. All world financial markets went down in 2008–2009, but Hang Seng indexes fell more dramatically and the thin structure of this drop was very well synchronised with the peaks of ideological media fuss over the swine influenza H1N1 in 2008–2010.
The other actor who may have received the good of Hong Kong markets plunges, could be the PRC government. It might also be a promoter and instigator of the ideological bustle over the utmost danger of the Hong Kong viruses to discredit Hong Kong as one of the major safe havens for the world financial investments. With this ideological assault, Hong Kong may have lost its reputation as a quiet and peaceful place for the finances. If this assumption turns right in the future, it can also shed some light to the hidden reasons and structure of the Umbrellas uprising. Now, at the height of the Umbrellas movement in Hong Kong in 2018, the task of understanding the ideological foundations of this social movement, is very urgent. In this regard, we think that evaluating the social, economic and financial situation in Hong Kong since the beginning of this century, is a task quite necessary for the correct assessment of the true motivation of the Hong Kong protesters. We should understand the connection between social discontent of the Hong Kongese outspoken in the Umbrellas manifestations, and the deteriorating of Hong Kong standing as a world financial safety haven.
We studied the structure and language of the media stories in Chinese, American, European and Asian media sources, from TV breaking news to large reviews in popular magazines of 1997–2010. We conclude that the main core of the stories concerned was feigned by reporters and did not reflect the true situation with the Hong Kong pandemics that may be received now from official medical sources. The danger of Hong Kong flu viruses was greatly exaggerated in mass media: dozens of sick people transformed to dozens of thousands.
The connection of the ideological narrations about the Hong Kong influenzas and Hong Kong financial troubles, seems beyond a doubt. A future research will undoubtedly help us to descry the peculiarities of the connection.
© 2018 Wang Liu; Alice Wong Li Qin; Felicity Mary Kwan Jiao; Sharov Konstantin; Ho Xiaotong; Tony Cheng Koh. Licensee The Beacon: Journal for Studying Ideologies and Mental Dimensions.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
