but chief executive Carrie Lam's strategy to placate them

is to focus on economic issues.

The argument she and Beijing have championed

is that the unrest is due to a lack of economic opportunity.

And a big part of that is due to Hong Kong

having the least affordable property market in the world.

By one estimate the median price of a flat

is 21 times median salary.

In London, it's less than five.

So last week, Lam announced that Hong Kongers would be allowed

to take up mortgages of up to 90 per cent on a flat valued at up

to US$1m.

That is a complete reversal of 10 years worth of failed

attempts to cool the market by restricting mortgage lending.

She also pledged to seize 700 hectares of land

from developers to help ease the housing shortage.

However, the main beneficiaries of both measures

will be the one group of people in Hong Kong who

really don't need any help at all - property tycoons.

On the face of it, easing mortgage restrictions

should mean people are no longer priced out of the market.

The reality is that Hong Kong property prices only 5

per cent off their all-time high.

And accessibility isn't necessarily affordability.

Telling homebuyers they can leverage up

with prices near record highs and the economy facing

recession is a great way to put people at risk in falling

into negative equity.

But what about land seizures?

Won't that hurt the developers?

Well, probably not.

In Hong Kong, just four developers

own farm land, covering 150m potential square feet

of floor space - six times the size of Monaco.

What's more, the government will have

to pay market prices for the land it seizes.

But the kicker is that the government already

controls the amount of land released

for development each year.

The way Hong Kong's political system is structured is that

the tycoons who control developers have outsize

representation on the 1,200-person committee that

chooses Hong Kong's chief executive.

So Lam's government is incentivised

to respond to their wishes, not those of ordinary people, when

it comes to how much land is made available for new housing.

And that means developers have little interest

in any democratic reforms that can

loosen their grip on Hong Kong's lucrative property market.