Should it stop trying to curb investment in certain technologies; open its doors wider to trade with the mainland; and allow mainlanders to work, invest and holiday in Taiwan?
On February 15th about 200 protesters, chanting "mainlanders go back to the mainland", heckled visitors to a suburban mall who appeared to be compatriots from across the border on a buying spree in the territory.
Mainstream Chinese society holds economic growth and social stability as sacrosanct, and many mainlanders wonder why a city which benefits tremendously from its mainland ties would turn on its most important benefactor.
The city is ruled by China under a "one country, two systems" model that allows it a different legal system and its people more political rights than mainlanders enjoy.
It now includes lots of Chinese mainlanders, both visiting students and businessmen.
Mainlanders are paid around HK$200 $255) a day for buying up goods in Hong Kong, taking them across the border in suitcases, and handing them over to middlemen for re-sale.
This has kindled resentment among the pre-invasion Cypriot Turks, who complain of Turkish mainlanders' patronising ways.
The recent protests have been targeted mainly at mainlanders, but many of those involved in the racket are in fact Hong Kongers.Mr Leung has tried to give the impression that it was not the protests that caused his change of heart.
But on April 13th the country's state-controlled media announced a concession to those involved in a subsequent series of protests over the problem of "parallel trading": trips by mainlanders into Hong Kong for the purpose of buying up goods for resale back across the border.
(In Las Vegas casinos carry out background checks on gamblers and lend to them directly).But it is not just a passion for cards that brought more than 13.2m mainlanders to Macau in the first ten months of this year.
Now they want a load of stuff they don't need, too.In Hong Kong's Tsim Sha Tsui shopping district, queues of bling-hungry mainlanders stretch into the streets outside stores carrying the best-known brands.
