In this opinion piece, longtime arts observer Simon Cartledge, author of A System Apart, examines the future of the West Kowloon Cultural District. He sat down with WestK‘s newly appointed chairman to discover what lies ahead.
The greatest thing about Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District is that there’s no going back. Progress in developing its multiple facilities may have been repeatedly delayed over the more-than-a-quarter-of-a-century since the scheme was first announced in late 1990s, but too much is up and running — and too much more already on its way — for the project ever to be rewound.
That scale has been important from the start. Part of the thinking behind the district was for it to play a role in changing Hong Kong’s nature, helping it move from being an essentially commercial city to one also that embraced culture and the arts.
Despite the construction sites that still litter the area, millions of people visit the area annually: around 15 million by official accounts. The Xiqu Centre has been presenting Cantonese opera and other forms of traditional Chinese theatre since 2019; the Freespace contemporary performance venue opened the same year; M+ followed in 2021; and the Hong Kong Palace Museum in 2022, which also saw M+ Cinema have its first showings.
The much-delayed Lyric Theatre complex is now scheduled to be finished this year, though it remains an open question when it will host its first shows. Two other theatres, a 600-seat medium-sized venue and a 270-seat studio one, have been folded into the complex.
So far, nearly HK$50 billion has been spent on the scheme, with at least another HK$20 billion needed to complete the other projects either being built or planned. Its operational deficit is also rising, with ongoing expenses set to hit HK$1 billion in the current financial year ending in March 2026, up from HK$580 million in 2023-24.
Much, however, has changed since the idea of a new “state-of-the-art performance venue on the West Kowloon reclamation” was first floated in the 1998 policy address, especially in the last five years. With the imposition of the National Security Law by Beijing in 2021 and Hong Kong passing its own Article 23 Safeguarding National Security Ordinance Law in 2024, cultural life in the city the more freewheeling ways of the past will no longer be tolerated. For the arts and culture — essentially liberal, pluralist things — that has meant coming to terms with narrower, more conservative management.
That has affected West Kowloon in various ways. In July this year, organisers of Pink Dot, Hong Kong’s annual LGBTQ+ carnival, announced they were cancelling this year’s event after the district’s authority refused to rent them space. Pink Dot had been held in the district’s Art Park in the previous two years, and though no reason was given for the decision, an indication of its possible cause came in October when the authority itself cancelled a production of local playwright’s Candace Chong’s play We Are Gay just two hours before tickets were due to go on sale for performances already booked for November and December.
In 2022, the play had its first performances in the Grand Theatre of West Kowloon’s Xiqu Centre as part of the 50th Hong Kong Arts Festival. This time round, though, the cultural district’s authority said it had received “a large number of complaints” alleging that the play “promotes confrontation and defames Hong Kong” and therefore considered it “inappropriate to stage the programme at [any of its] venues,” according to the Hong Kong Free Press.
West Kowloon’s new boss
The same month, the task of juggling West Kowloon’s finances and the project’s overall direction was handed to Bernard Chan, a business leader and long-time government adviser. Chan, who turned 61 in early January, graduated from California’s Pomona college with a degree in art in 1988. He then worked briefly as an investment banker in New York before returning to Hong Kong to join his family’s long established insurance business, eventually taking over as chairman and president of Asia Financial and chairman of Asia Insurance, its two leading arms.
By the late 1990s, he was also actively involved in local politics, serving as a Legislative Council member from 1998 to 2008 representing the insurance industry’s functional constituency, and from 2004 as a member of the Executive Council, the chief executive’s principal policy‑making advisory body. In 2017, then chief executive Carrie Lam made him the convener of the council’s non-official members, a position he held until the end of her term in 2022.
Chan’s involvement in arts projects began in earnest in 2020, when he was appointed chairman of Tai Kwun, responsible for overseeing the planning, funding, curation and execution of its cultural programmes. From 2022 to 2025, he was vice chairman of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, during which he was also chairman of M+, and from 2018 to 2022 he was the first chairman of the Hong Kong Palace Museum.
He has not, however, always been a believer in the arts’ prospects in Hong Kong, admitting he was sceptical when the idea of using land reclaimed as part of building the Western Harbour Tunnel for cultural facilities was first mooted. “Back in 1998, I really didn’t believe that there would be a future for [the arts and culture in] Hong Kong,” he says. “I never saw that this place cared that much about arts and culture. But today – oh gosh — we have so much potential here.”
He’s now a believer, albeit largely on pragmatic grounds. “From nowhere, we’ve become the third largest [art] trading centre in the world after New York and London,” he says. The opening of M+ in late 2021 and the Palace Museum half a year later helped reconnect Hong Kong with the world after the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, Hong Kong’s clear proof of its commitment to culture can help improve its reputation overseas. “Whenever I go outside to talk and promote Hong Kong, this is the one area where I receive less criticism,” he says.
Chan notes that the cultural district is effectively just four years old. “We’re still a startup,” he says. “But we punch way above that weight. Today we’re in the top-20-most-visited museums in the world.” He notes that last year alone, West Kowloon signed more than 30 memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with its counterparts around the world, including the UK’s Tate and Victoria and Albert Museum, the US’s Getty Museum, France’s Pompidou Centre and Japan’s National Museum and National Art Center. “We just recently signed one with MoMA in New York. The list goes on,” says Chan. Each of those MOUs could result in future collaborations on exhibitions and other events.
Supporting culture can also encourage people to move to Hong Kong. “What’s the biggest challenge we face today? It’s that we’re competing for the best talent,” says Chan. “New York and London aren’t just financial centres. They’re also cultural capitals,” says Chan. “Hong Kong needs to be at the same level.”
A national imperative
Chan also highlights something he thinks people overlook: West Kowloon’s national-level backing. “When people say to me West Kowloon financially is not looking very good, I say, ‘Listen, this is not just a Hong Kong matter anymore. It’s in the national blueprint.’” With Beijing watching over it, Hong Kong has no option but to deliver.
And he hints that Hong Kong’s current political set-up can help here. “Frankly, Hong Kong has the advantages [needed] to deliver it,” he says. “It’s a huge long-term commitment. Thank goodness our system allows [such commitments] — [that’s] one more factor that nobody in Hong Kong recognises.”
That all would seem to make Chan’s main task as being shepherding things through — appeasing those who see West Kowloon as a waste of money, maintaining its artistic credibility, expanding its international ties and ensuring its offerings appeal to more than hardcore culture fans.
“It’s an investment,” he says. “Everybody knows that we’re in the red. I say, yes, sure, [but] the reason we’re in the red is because of a mismatch of timing. The commercial and residential [income] hasn’t arrived yet. So that’s a time gap. I’m not worrying we’re going to default. Why would we default? But I have to make sure we maximise value in this amazing location.”
The main source of future revenue will come from property. Within the West Kowloon Cultural District itself, the main commercial construction underway is Sun Hung Kai Properties’ Artist Square Towers. Being developed under a 47-year build-operate-transfer agreement, its three towers will offer some 62,500 square metres of office space above 2,500 square metres of retail, dining and entertainment facilities.
West Kowloon has also applied to the Town Planning Board to build seven residential blocks on part of its land near Kowloon Station, between them offering nearly 2,000 apartments. “There won’t be people moving in for a while,” says Chan. With the scheme still at the consultation phase, construction is far from starting. “It probably won’t be until 2029 or 2030 before we can start selling them,” he notes.
Addressing controversy
Towards the end of our interview, I ask Chan about the cancellation of Candace Chong’s play “We Are Gay” — one of first things to happen on his watch.
“Honestly,” he says, “it wasn’t my decision. I didn’t know what was the consideration behind it.” But then he offers his take. “Today, to say that we can avoid politics is not real. But I’ll tell you something. People are always like ‘Oh it’s Beijing.’ I say, no, listen, every day when I get up, I don’t worry about Beijing — they don’t micromanage me. I don’t worry about the Hong Kong government. They don’t micromanage me. My biggest nightmare, every day, is what’s next on social media.”
If something related to West Kowloon attracts attention, “Oh my gosh,” says Chan. “I can bet that not long after I will get a phone call from the Hong Kong government saying ‘What the hell are you guys doing?’ This isn’t just Hong Kong. You see this everywhere. And I can tell you, the Hong Kong government and even Beijing, they just don’t want any problems. They don’t want to deal with anything. That’s why sometimes some people are very risk averse. That’s why it’s a very difficult job these days if you’re a theatre director or programme director or anything like that, who knows, you might have a perfectly good show, but [then things] spin out of control and become something else.”
In such circumstances, it’s best to play things down. “Something I’ve learned is, don’t overreact,” says Chan. “You can’t ignore [things] either — you can’t think, ‘Oh, I don’t give a shit about that.’ No, [do that and] you’ll get burned. But then you might not need to overreact either.”
Was it this flexibility which explains why former Chief Executive Carrie Lam picked him out to head the Palace Museum project back in 2017? “I assume so,” he says. Though whether that’s a virtue he’s not so sure. Often people congratulate him on the many official posts he has held. “I say, you’re kidding me. The government always gives me shit jobs. The reason I don’t get any good jobs is because I don’t fight for them. But the nasty ones, they’re like, okay, you do it.”
Four years ago Chan wrote in the South China Morning Post that “if Hong Kong’s image as an open, tolerant and cosmopolitan city is damaged, the hard work we have put in to build its art infrastructure will be wasted.”
“You remember,” he says when I bring up the editorial. But he doesn’t demur.
While West Kowloon poses various challenges for Hong Kong, almost everyone wants it to succeed on one level or another, be that by boosting Hong Kong’s name worldwide, strengthening ties with other parts of China and other parts of the world, or playing a key role in making culture and the arts a significant part of Hong Kong’s economy.
For some, it can help Hong Kong move on from the events of recent years — the protests of 2019, the imposition of the National Security Law and the local passing of Article 23. At the same time, the view of culture and the arts around which it’s been constructed is intrinsically pluralist. This notion that the arts only make sense if at their core they pursue multiple views, including some which inherently challenge existing ways of thinking, is anathema to Hong Kong’s current authorities.
For now, though as Chan notes repeatedly, West Kowloon’s existence means it has to work. Most pressingly, that calls for a constant cajoling of the government and others for money. The arguments about its benefits will have to be repeated ad infinitum.
But as he also says, it is delivering: bringing talent, creating shows and taking Hong Kong to the world. “If you asked me three years ago, I would have been like, ‘Okay, that’s my aspiration,’” he says. But now, “we’re actually delivering it. I don’t think people here understand the significance of that yet.” Once again, he positions that significance as part of something bigger. “Your clientele aren’t just here. If it was just for Hong Kong, I really don’t think we could justify the more than US$6 billion that’s been spent already.”
Perhaps, as well as boosting Hong Kong’s standing in the world and helping the local economy, West Kowloon can go even further. With its facilities in place, other things can happen: boundaries pushed, new ideas floated, new ways of doing things tried out.
Portrait by Xiaomei Chen for Zolima CityMag
West Kowloon view by Kevin Mak