Hong Kong Intelligence Report #154 Accelerationism and Trump 2.0 Effects on Trade War
- Ryota Nakanishi
- 4 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Open-source intelligence (OSINT)
🔻 IMPORTANT - Accelerationism
▪️ The purpose of this article is to briefly summarize the ideological situation of Hong Kong at the time of writing in the context of accelerationism and the ongoing tariff-trade war between the U.S. and China.
(1) What we experienced in the news media on April 23, 2025 was a sheer manipulation to boost stock market prices by selectively distorting President Trump's remarks. The Hong Kong media, as usual, take any news material and events and turn them into stock market boosters or property market boosters. Besides, its typical feature is the homogeneity of news reports, because Hong Kong media, no matter whether it claims to be "pro-establishment" or "opposition" or "mildly pro-establishment", they tend to carefully check and emulate each other's news to serve the same local interests. And only powerful mainstream foreign media outlets remain their original taste and style outstanding to the Hong Kong media.
For example, Centaline Property Agency's privately-owned media outlet am730, like other Hong Kong media outlets at the time, simply reported the reduction of tariffs on China without context. 美國總統特朗普在關稅問題上再度「轉軚」，他表示將大幅削減對中國商品的關稅，但同時強調補充中國的關稅不會降到零(China tariffs will come down substantially but won't be zero)，this is the characteristic practice of Hong Kong media in general, always with a view to irresponsibly boosting financial speculation.
On Tuesday, Trump appeared to soften his stance on the escalating tariff war aimed primarily at China, saying that in the event of negotiations, levies on China would "come down substantially, but it won't be zero."
Speaking at a White House event, he said the current level of 145 percent was "very high" and that eventual tariffs would "not be anywhere near that high." A timeline for any change was not made clear.
And most of the Hong Kong media reported only this part without the context. As a result, the speculators were misled to raise the Hang Seng Index from 21,562.32 (4/22/2025) to 22,072.62 (4/23/2025), while it went down the next day. This is the short-sighted media manipulation for temporary gains. All insight and depth are dissolved in this kind of extremely superficial use of the media. This is not in the public interest at all. It seems that the self-proclaimed "victims" of the trade war are exploiting the "opportunity" as usual. This is the city of frauds and cheats.
Fortunately, the White House later clarified that there will be no unilateral reduction of tariffs on China.
According to White House press secretary Caroline Levitt, the United States does not plan to unilaterally reduce tariffs on China.
It is imperative to clarify that there will be no unilateral reduction of tariffs on China. The President has clearly stated that a mutually beneficial agreement between the United States and China is imperative, and it is our fervent hope that such an agreement will be realized. In the event that this agreement is reached, the determination of the specific tariff rate for China will be left to the President. Nevertheless, it is crucial to emphasize the need to reduce tariffs and non-monetary tariff barriers imposed by China. Furthermore, it is imperative to monitor the return of these multinationals' production activities to the United States, as this will contribute to the strengthening of these vital supply chains".
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c . Hang Seng Index
(2) The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce's planned visit to the United States this week has been postponed due to the US-China trade war. Jeffrey Lam, a member of the Chamber's Executive Council and Board of Directors, said that due to the volatile economic and trade environment between China and the US and the high level of political uncertainty, the Chamber decided to postpone the visit after a meeting, stressing that the postponement did not mean cancellation. There is only one entity speaking in the opposite direction to the HMO's all-out statement of April 15, and that is the HKGCC and its Legislative Council representative Jeffrey Lam. This also means that the VISION 2047 Foundation is in line with its stance because the trinity embodies the core inner voice of Hong Kong's ruling class and vested interests in general. Jeffrey Lam said in a radio program that the General Chamber of Commerce will observe the situation in the second half of the year before deciding when to visit the United States, but he mentioned that both sides are still interacting and getting to know each other through various channels. He also revealed that the business community is considering visiting Europe in the second half of the year, and said that the Europeans he has met all hope to enter the mainland market through Hong Kong, believing that the "rise of the East and the decline of the West" has already begun.
In addition, Jeffrey Lam stated that the global supply chain is facing restructuring, and Hong Kong companies need to expand into markets beyond the United States in the medium to long term to survive. He expressed hope that markets such as Southeast Asia, Africa and South America can be developed, but personally believes that the mainland remains the largest market.
This is a self-contradiction that Jeffrey doesn't realize, if the biggest market is China, and reliable markets are Southeast Asia, Africa and South America as stated, while only trying to visit the US and Europe? For Hong Kong, all markets should be maintained. Jeffrey HKGCC-Hong Kong's vested interest circle's delay on the US visit is simply afraid of arousing suspicion and even condemnation from the CCP. However, this move embodies what the Hong Kong vested interests are. They are independent of the state and the state policy of China.
The point is that what can be an acceptable difference to the state and state policy of China obviously depends on the discretion of the CCP and the PCG, not any self-interpretation by the Hong Kong side, because all legislative proposals and court rulings are subject to state review in the system. If the CCP allows it, there is nothing to be announced as an issue just to be effective. On this speed and acceleration of governmental policies of HKSARG are basically limited in those deregulations and tax relief for an army of stock market, real estate globalist speculators and 'family office' private bankers of financial oligarchs. These can be enacted immediately by reversing the normal legislative process through the executive orders of the HKSARG. I have to ask a question about this. Where is the "reform" now being advocated by the state? In fact, Hong Kong's vested interests are happy with the turbulence of the suddenly accelerated trade war, which has pushed aside the CCP's top-down reform agenda. A temporary political relief for them, while the duplicitous Hong Kong swindlers demonize Trump 2.0 and the US on the surface.
In short, HKGCC's zig-zagging only represents its intimidation and opportunistic attitude while properly distancing itself from HMO in action. The biggest contradiction between HKGCC and HMO is the still unsolved Panama Canal scandal. It is the Lam Chau doctorate of the Hong Kong oligarchy that sells 43 ports to others. This will happen to realize 1C2S at the initiative of Li Ka-shing, the top #1 capitalist of this city. This is not a bad thing, while it will only speed up the reform process.
Remember, both the CCP and Trump 2.0 are great external driving forces for Hong Kong reform. From the perspective of the proletariat, this is ultimately the good thing in politics. There is no need to demonize President Trump and the US, while Hong Kong is fatally lacking internal reformist forces.
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(3) Accelerationism is well explained by the formula capitalism + technology = post-humanity or post-capitalism. And it has been presented as an impulse rather than a system in the midst of neoliberal stagnation and turmoil. Like any other postmodernism, it comes from the 1960s - the American writer Roger Zelazny's novel Lord of Light (1967) - as explained by the left accelerationist manifesto, #ACCELERATE MANIFESTO for an Accelerationist Politics, written by Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek in 2013. Both the right and left camps of accelerationists acknowledge Deng Xiaoping, Xi Jinping, and Donald Trump as the best examples of accelerationism. My point is that so-called postmodernism is still modernism, while its basis of argument, a major way of life, capitalism, is modernism. Moreover, another root of accelerationism, Marxism, is also modernism. Thus, postmodernism is still an illusion in reality. Its way of thinking and managing its brand efforts is still capitalism. For example, the now defunct Cybernetic Culture Research Institute of the University of Warwick was a 'wanna be Frankfurt School'. However, the acceleration of the developmentalist process in the fourth industrial revolution got its ideological expression, the justification in accelerationism is undeniable. What is missing in their understanding of the Marxist concept of acceleration is that the Marxist acceleration of the historical process is done through the development of the new quality productive forces as material conditions and effective state management to alleviate the transitional pains of the proletariat. Thus, it is not an endless, unconditional acceleration of the process that the accelerationists advocate. They are fatally blind to the latter role of state management. So what about Hong Kong, this city? First, Hong Kongers have no philosophical maturity to deal with ideologies, the citizens are vulnerable to radicalization, as a result, it is easy to drown in the 28 Days Later situation, which is witnessed in 2019; Second, Hong Kong and Macau are 1C2S, the citizens are under two different centralized governments, one is the SARGs, the other is the PCG. This also gives the cities only two different ideological choices, one is capitalism, the other is socialism. Nothing else. In short, ideological frameworks are designed with the governing system for the citizens; Third, the HKSARGs are far from accelerationism, while their priority is to sluggishly maintain the British colonial interests and its enclave in China at the expense of the poor of this city. The word acceleration or accelerationism is not in their political dictionary. Under the circumstances, what the proletariat of this city can do is to accelerate the process of Hong Kong's full unification into the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. This will serve the general direction of Hong Kong reform by reducing the extremely high cost of living. There's no doubt that northbound consumption is more effective in weakening the vested interests than any demonstration in Hong Kong.
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