Hong Kong, consistently ranked as one of the world’s leading smart cities, is undergoing a period of disruptive change. While still shaped fundamentally by the “one country, two systems” arrangement, Hong Kong is increasingly integrated into the political (Liaison Office) and economic (Greater Bay Area, GBA) logics of mainland China (Ho and Tran 2019). The “dynamic zero-Covid approach” has also significantly impeded Hong Kong’s place branding as “Asia’s World City,” with the relocation of cor..