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Hong Kong’s modern history is a remarkable story: a leasehold on a rock by a colonial empire from a vast and rising power; a lease whose expiry was honoured, creating a strange, unintended and successful experimental outcome. For more than a century, and even since its return from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, Hong Kong has combined access to the vast population, business opportunity and culture of China, with British ease of business and the rule of law.

Hong Kong grew, and thrives today, as an entrepôt economy: a place that has no other reason for its commercial existence bar its role as a place through which things happen. Since the 19th century it has been the forum through which the rest of the world and China have been able to do business with one another. From the western perspective, it has been the most familiar territory in East Asia, with laws and practices that are known to them; from the Chinese perspective, it has been the best way to get products out to the rest of the world. Fuelled by the truly extraordinary Cantonese work ethic – the strongest, I believe, in the world – Hong Kong has grown by being in the middle, by smoothing things out, by making things happen.

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