Hong Kong politics is often described as a contest between the blue and yellow camps. On the blue side are the conservative, pro-establishment forces, many of whom are people disillusioned by the West because of what they see as its growing bias against China.

Across the divide is the other Hong Kong, consisting of people who identify with what they perceive to be Western values. Some of them retain an emotional bond with the territory’s heritage as a British colony and wish for more distance for Hong Kong from the mainland.

This situation is all wrong. Dug into their trenches, both sides are missing the key point about Hong Kong. The point is that from here on, there are only two roads left on which to travel.

A property landlord has backed down and given tenants of a Hong Kong youth hostel an extra month to find alternative housing, following residents’ complaints about potentially having to return to cramped shoebox homes when the lease expires.

Some residents of the BeLIVING Youth Hub in Causeway Bay said on Friday that its operator, the Hong Kong United Youth Association, had called tenants last week to tell them that they had to move out by February 28.

“We are all fearful now. We are worried that we won’t have a place to live after February 28,” Timothy Chan, 31, said.

BeLIVING Youth Hub is among the premises under the government’s youth hostel scheme, under which non-profit operators offer rooms at below-market rents and run hotel-to-hostel facilities.

The association said the youth hostel had been operating under a three-year lease beginning in March 2023 that was set to expire at the end of next month. It said it had expressed its wish to continue operating to the owner of the premises last August.

“We also reflected our wish to continue running the youth hostel to the Home and Youth Affairs Bureau a year ago, but we were told by our landlord at the end of last year that the lease would not be extended,” the association said.