Why Hong Kong Succeeded in the Past—and Why It Must Reassess Itself Today

I am often asked a simple question: what can Hong Kong actually do in the space sector?

The more I think about it, the more I feel this cannot be answered by talking about space alone. We first need to revisit a deeper question: what made Hong Kong successful, what has changed, and which core strengths still matter most today?

The following two pieces are individual reflections on these questions. This first one is about Hong Kong itself. The second will turn to space.

These are still preliminary thoughts, and I would sincerely welcome feedback and correction.

Hong Kong did not succeed simply because it picked the right industries at the right time. Its deeper strength was something else: the ability to organize external resources, differences, and uncertainty into sustained economic activity.

Hong Kong has never been rich in land, natural resources, or hinterland. Its success was therefore never mainly about what it had. It was about what it could connect, translate, and make work together.

At its best, Hong Kong functioned not just as a port or a financial center, but as an interface. It connected China and the world, production and markets, Chinese commercial networks, and international legal-financial systems. Its value came not simply from being “in between,” but from being able to make the complexity of the in-between productive.

In that sense, Hong Kong’s long-term success rested on three capabilities: connection, conversion, and credibility.

• Connection: linking resources and demand across different systems

• Conversion: turning an advantage in one system into usable value in another

• Credibility: creating enough trust for cross-border capital, contracts, and cooperation to function

Trade, shipping, finance, and professional services looked like different sectors, but all depended on these same underlying capabilities.

Two other conditions also mattered greatly, though they are often underestimated.

The first was cultural diversity. Hong Kong’s international character was not just a branding exercise. It was a real source of productivity. High-value activities often depend on the ability to understand differences, translate across systems, and enable cooperation among people who do not start from the same assumptions. Hong Kong’s multicultural environment helped it do exactly that.

The second was a deep ethic of striving. Institutions matter, but institutions alone do not create outcomes. Hong Kong benefited for decades from people willing to work hard, move fast, adapt, and take risks. Rules created space, but people turned that space into results.

This helps explain Hong Kong’s earlier transformations. Its shift from entrepôt to manufacturing, and later from manufacturing to services and finance, was not just a matter of historical luck. In both cases, Hong Kong was able to absorb external opportunities and convert them into local prosperity.

That is why the current transition is harder.

The problem today is not simply that one industry is missing. It is that the external environment no longer gives Hong Kong such an obvious role by default. Globalization is being reconfigured. Geopolitics matters more. Flows of technology, capital, data, and talent are changing. At the same time, the Chinese mainland has developed many capabilities of its own. Functions that once had to pass through Hong Kong are no longer automatically exclusive to it.

So the real question now is no longer whether the door is open. It is this: even if the door remains open, why must others still come through Hong Kong?

This is why Hong Kong needs to reassess itself.

Its advantages have not disappeared. It still has major strengths in finance, professional services, higher education, research, and international connectivity. It also has the unique advantage of being deeply linked both to China and to the world. The issue is not that Hong Kong has no cards left. The issue is that those cards can no longer be played in the old way.

What matters now is whether Hong Kong can reorganize its strengths into a new form of irreplaceability.

That means preserving an open and plural environment, because diversity is not cosmetic for Hong Kong—it is part of the capability itself.

It also means retaining a social willingness to strive, adapt, and enter unfamiliar fields, because future competitiveness will still depend on people prepared to move into new industries and new technological domains.

Most importantly, it means turning broad institutional advantages into industry-specific capabilities. In the past, being a good environment was often enough. In the future, Hong Kong will need to become a functionally indispensable node in selected value chains.

And it must do more to convert external opportunities into durable local assets: talent, standards, expertise, networks, and forms of influence that others cannot easily replicate.

Revisiting why Hong Kong succeeded is therefore not an exercise in nostalgia. It is a necessary step in understanding what still works, what no longer does, and what now needs to be strengthened.

The real challenge is neither to repeat the language of past success nor to chase every new trend. It is to answer a more difficult question: in which critical areas can Hong Kong still become difficult to replace?

If we can, then space economy may be worth considering not just as a new industry but as a new arena in which Hong Kong can rebuild relevance, deepen capability, and define a new role for itself.

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