The new week on the financial markets begins with news of old conflicts flaring up anew. Hong Kong has once again entered the news as last week China announced a controversial new security law that will significantly infringe upon the special territory’s sense of independence.
This new law is far worse than the one that sparked protests in Hong Kong in 2019. Quite predictably, Hong Kong citizens went out to protest once again after the news about the new law broke out. Bear in mind that last year’s protests were not over to begin with; they were less populous since people were observing social distancing guidelines for the coronavirus, which made public gatherings a major health risk. But now that their independence is at stake, the people of Hong Kong are out and about again. There have already been violent clashes with the authorities as the unrest spirals out of control.
The United States, which last year expressed its support for Hong Kong protesters, has now added more than 30 additional Chinese companies to its blacklist in an attempt to pressure China. The US government was already on bad terms with China over the Covid-19 pandemic, so the Hong Kong issue is further escalating that and raising the fears of a resumption of the trade war.
In other news, the number of coronavirus cases globally surpassed 5.5 million. Close to 1.7 million of those cases are in the United States, while Brazil overtook Russia for the second place with 365,000 cases. Russia currently has over 350,000 Covid-19 cases and continues to report daily increases of over 8,000 people.
Europe, on the other hand, appears to have broadly stabilized after the pandemic. Many EU countries have nearly completely reopened their economies and there are hopes that travel and summer tourism will happen this year too, despite previous fears that they will not. Economic sentiment for the eurozone is improving due to this news.
Besides that, today will be a relatively calm day on the markets, as many countries observe various holidays and keep their markets closed for the day.
