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HONG KONG — After mass unrest in 2019, a pandemic that left it isolated from the world and the imposition of a national security law that has crushed dissent, Hong Kong is ready to turn the page.  “Social disturbance is clearly in the past,” the city’s leader, John Lee, said Wednesday at the Four Seasons Hotel, where about 200 finance industry executives from around the world were gathered for a summit. “It has given way to stability, to growing business and community confidence in Hong Kong’s future. Law and order has returned; the worst is behind us.” But the summit — meant to signal that the Chinese territory long known as a regional financial powerhouse is again open for business — has been shadowed by some awkward realities.  Hong Kong’s border with mainland China, its main economic driver, remains tightly closed because of pandemic restrictions. Participants in the summit, many of them American companies, have been criticized by rights groups and lawmakers who say they are compli...

Li Qiang, likely to become the next premier, is pictured here speaking at a major annual financial conference in Shanghai in 2020. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images BEIJING — Chinese stocks' plunge on Monday over fears about China's new leadership team "may be misguided," consulting firm Teneo said. Chinese stocks in Hong Kong and New York, especially internet tech giants such as Alibaba , dropped on the first trading day after Chinese President Xi Jinping cemented his firm grip on power with a new core leadership team filled with his loyalists. Over the last several years, Xi has shown a preference for greater state involvement in the economy. "Close relationships with Xi notwithstanding, Li Qiang, Li Xi, and Cai Qi all enter the [Politburo standing committee] after heading up rich provinces where economic growth is still the top priority," Teneo Managing Director Gabriel Wildau and a team said in a note. Xi's leadership team The Politburo standing...