Never heard of it before - the free city movement is now underway
Author: Victoria Harbor Group CEO Ivan Ko
When the world is in chaos as the Israel-Palestine and Russia-Ukraine war continue; when the Western democratic and liberal camps and the authoritarian, totalitarian blocs are fighting around the world in a life or death situation; when some people begin to believe that capitalist democratic system in the west is going to decline while the east is rising and will take its place (rising of the east and falling of the west); when Hong Kong, which used to be the freest, most open and brilliant city in the world is being suppressed, ruined, and is sinking deep even to the point that it is irreversible. In fact, revolutions have begun quietly in more than a dozen places on earth. A group of insightful people from all over the world are promoting a movement that you have never heard of or even imagined - the Free City Movement.
In the past three years since I initiated and promoted the establishment of the "International Charter City", I began to come into contact with some key figures in the circle of establishing and managing new cities in some independent and free ways. We are all like-minded people and feel that we should have met each other years ago. We feel eureka immediately. When I proposed building an international charter city three years ago, many people thought it was similar to the name of Tom Cruise’s movie, Mission Impossible. Sometimes I feel that my situation is similar to a famous Hong Kong singer the late Anita Mui's song "Walking my way alone, groping my way on my own"*. Sometimes I feel a little "lonely in my heart"*. Thanks to a group of colleagues who share the same belief, as well as a hundred elite volunteers from various industries around the world who have joined me like "whispering in my ear"* to walk this journey which no one has ventured before.
Recently I was invited to attend the Free Cities Foundation Annual Conference held in Prague on October 14-15. It is the first time to know that I am not the only one with some crazy ideas in this world, but there are others. There are groups of people of similar interest scattered around the world. The two-days meeting was attended by more than 300 people from 34 countries, all of whom shared their ideas on "free city", "international charter city", "private city" and "international city" which they are contemplating or implementing, sharing their thoughts and progress. This group of free city promoters, or libertarians (liberalists), are really imaginative without boundary. Most of them advocate buying some remote land or sparsely populated islands and re-planning and developing new cities and new communities according to the principles of autonomous management. One of the most creative proposals is to build a seastead in open seas. As for buying land to build new cities, it is more common in developing countries such as Honduras, including the partially built commercial city of Prospera and the industrial city of Chiudad Morazan.
The most encouraging one is that a new country called the Free Republic of Liberland was established on a completely unclaimed island with an area of 7 square kilometers (the land area of Hong Kong is 1,100 square kilometers) between Croatia and Serbia. The President of this country has traveled around the world in the past few years to promote the country's passport. 730,000 people have applied to become his e-citizens, and activities are held in this "small country" every year. There are also libertarian communities in New Hampshire in the United States, a small island called Sark in the British Channel, and a small village in Liberstad in Norway. They all advocate to manage their own by themselves and in their own ways, with developers setting rules and management models, open and transparent participation of residents, and collaboration with residents. A social contract is to be established or even form their own government to implement some free forms of self-governance.
Most of these unconstrained, creative and courageous free city founders are dissatisfied with the existing cities and governments, or they want to stay away from any government and establish their own countries in the open seas. In fact, during the meeting, I heard a seemingly unanimous voice, suggesting that free cities should be developed into a global movement and promoted to the world.
Through the process of promoting international charter city over the past few years, I have learned that many countries and regions in the world have always implemented the one country, two systems** concept which is not groundbreaking at all. Many of them have been in place for a long time. For example, the overseas territories of France, the United Kingdom, and some other European countries are effectively implementing it which have no tenure limit. The sovereign country will not force the territorial governments to do anything against the wishes of the local people. On the contrary, many times the governor appointed by the sovereign state and the local governments try their best to play the art of balance and stay in harmony. It’s like the old saying from an ancient Chinese scholar Lao Tzu that running a big country is like cooking small fish.
I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the two days conference because everyone could talk about how to get away from governments, build a nation, establish a free city (autonomous city), digital nomad, global citizen passport...you name it. Any new ideas you can think of were being welcome and respected. And it is not just empty talks, all of us are promoting and implementing in some ways. We are all advocates and activists. The following lyrics by Anita Mui reflect the exuberant mood of these people who want to change the world: "I want to sing my heart's music, I have decided to walk the long road, and dance proudly to the beat of my heart and never stop, I don't care where the destination is and when I can reach it."
*These are the lyrics of Anita Mui’s popular song “I walk my lonely way”
**China claimed that one country two system which was initiated by the late Deng Xio Ping is first in human history, which has been imposed onto Hong Kong since the handover of sovereignty 1 July 1997.
Remark: You can find the opening speech of the Free Cities Foundation Annual Conference by Peter Young, and the author's video of his speech about the global citizen passport below. The transcript of the author’s speech can be found here.