Beijing enforces Hong Kong's birdcage democracy. The stock market sputters. Nouveau riche Chinese run the show. That, at least, is what some prominent observers think about 2017. As Hong Kong marks the 10th anniversary of its handover to Chinese rule on a rain-swept night in 1997, many agree the city's new masters have largely kept their word -- and the status quo.
But in 2017, 10 years from now, residents, activists, tycoons and economists gazing into crystal balls see brakes on democracy, a greater "Chinese-ness" and a waning of Hong Kong's financial muscle.
"Beijing is extremely happy about (Hong Kong's) situation and there's absolutely no reason for them to change tactics," said Willy Lam, a well-known China commentator. "There's no reason for them to be so generous as to allow Hong Kong to have a faster pace of democracy."
The city's mini-constitution states that universal suffrage is the ultimate goal but is vague on a timetable, giving Beijing scope to dictate the pace of progress. Democrats and a majority of the public, however, want a one-man, one-vote system by 2012.
Although a younger, "fifth generation" of Communist Party leaders will have replaced President Hu Jintao and his colleagues by then, analysts don't see much loosening of the political reins.
"The fifth generation will not do anything in the first term, because this is a Chinese tradition, where the first priority for leaders is to consolidate their position," said Lam.
Ten years after the handover, anxieties may have eased considerably. But some rue an erosion of the "Pearl of the Orient's" famed cosmopolitanism -- a trend that will quicken with a continuing influx of Chinese officials, tourists and fortune-seekers lured by the bright lights, big city aura.
"There's less of that East-West hybrid that Hong Kong used to enjoy, (Hong Kong) is much more Chinese quintessentially," said tycoon and socialite David Tang, founder of luxury clothing brand Shanghai Tang.
"Everybody who is resident in Hong Kong has come to accept that the mainlanders are going to hold sway as being the most important people of the city in another 10 years time," he added. But that may threaten what some see as a core element of what makes Hong Kong Hong Kong.
"What makes us different, what makes us important, and what makes us successful, is our internationalism. And we don't want to lose that," said property fund manager Peter Churchouse, who has lived in the city for 27 years.
Despite this, many hope Beijing -- unwilling to jeopardise the rule of law and freedoms that underpin the city's success -- will mostly let Hong Kong go its way economically and socially.
"The one country, two systems formula is intact," said pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai, a strident critic of Beijing whose opposition newspaper Apple Daily has stayed in business -- and is highly profitable -- against the odds.
"Compared to China, Hong Kong is a haven of freedom ... It's Hong Kong's core, sine qua non, the nut. What makes Hong Kong so much more attractive is the word 'freedom'," Tang said.
Milton Friedman once famously called Hong Kong the world's freest economy. It weathered the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, the tech-bubble meltdown and a Sars respiratory crisis that decimated the local economy in 2002-03.
But should China allow a freely convertible yuan in future as some analysts predict, Shanghai, the poster child for economic reforms, might give Hong Kong a run for its money as the country's financial and economic capital.
Hong Kong is especially proud of its stock exchange -- a US $1.9 trillion market that is Asia's second largest, and the hottest venue for initial public offerings after London.
But a policy of encouraging the nation's biggest corporate champions to list at home will draw fund-raisings to Shanghai and undermine Hong Kong's role as a favourite listing venue for burgeoning Chinese firms.
"Hong Kong looks great at this moment, but I think 10 years down the road, there may be only one exchange," ventured Credit Suisse's Asian economist, Dong Tao. "It doesn't mean Hong Kong will die. Hong Kong has its advantages -- they're more than just a stock exchange."
Shanghai's ascendancy, however, had been held back so far in part because of China's shuttered capital regime.
"I did think that Hong Kong would very soon fade, because Shanghai would eventually overtake it. The worst hasn't happened," said British writer Jan Morris, whose acclaimed book "Hong Kong" marked the end of 156 years of British rule.
Indeed, the former fishing village built on little else but a deepwater harbour and a can-do spirit has a knack for defying fate. Time magazine, whose sister publication Fortune infamously predicted "The Death of Hong Kong" in a 1995 cover story, recently reversed its verdict with a glowing assessment of Hong Kong's future as "Sunshine, with Clouds".
So 10 years from now? "Well, you won't be able to see across the harbour," joked Churchouse, referring to the city's notorious air pollution. But, he added: "I'll still be here."