In October of 2023, Super Typhoon Saola hit Hong Kong. This Typhoon and the ensuing landslides would go on to expose the secrets of illegally built structures in the affluent coastal community, Redhill Peninsula. This disregard for planning rules and manipulation of the land for personal gain is not something new within private capital. Ever since the industrial revolution helped shape Hong Kong, the former “Barren Rock” as labelled by British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston in 1841, capital, capitalist property, and neoliberalism has constantly manipulated land to cater to human activity. In fact, since British imperialism in Hong Kong, the higher up the hill you were, the more wealth you obtained, following a structural power system. Matthew T. Huber writes,“ the entire human relationship to the natural world is, at its core, a relationship of production.”

When will Neo-liberalists stop trying to control the natural world? How far will the flows of capital go?