Tag: hong kong protest

• Hong Kong GDP as a % of mainland China GDP

  I was talking about this with my friend Evgeny Tchebotarev last night:

  

  The transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong (also known as the handover) happened at midnight on July 1, 1997. At the time, Hong Kong had a population of about 6.5 million people and China had a population of about 1.23 billion people. But Hong Kong punched well above its weight class and its GDP as a percentage of mainland China’s GDP was about 18.4% (see above). In other words, Hong Kong represented about 0.53% of the population, but almost 1/5 of China’s economic output. Today, well as of 2018, this number has declined to 2.7% (again, see above). Hong Kong still possesses a number of structural benefits compared to mainland China, but its position as a global financial center is not guaranteed.

  Graph: Investopedia

  2019.11.03

• Using AI to estimate crowd sizes

  

  This recent NY Times article about crowd estimates for Hong Kong’s annual pro-democracy protest is a good follow-up to my post about the number of people who, allegedly, showed up to last month’s NBA Championship parade here in Toronto.

  For years, Hong Kong has been seeing divergent estimates for its annual protest. Organizers typically overstate. And the police typically understate. This year, organizers claimed 550,000 people in attendance, whereas the police claimed only 190,000.

  The difference this year is that a local tech company has started using AI software (loaded up onto iPads) to help supplement the standard practice manual counts. This year they concluded — perhaps more definitively — that 265,000 people protested in the streets of Hong Kong.

  Image: NY Times

  2019.07.03