Hong Kong's International Financial Centre: Retrospect and Prospect

stood between their institutions and oblivion. Hong Kong’s IFC is ever more deeply connected
to the real economy of greater China. It can continue the process of integration while
simultaneously strengthening itself for the benefit of all of Hong Kong’s residents.
Such strengthening should include measures to promote industrial diversification
domestically, again in the overarching interest of maintaining the relative autonomy of Hong
Kong’s society, even after 2047. Deepening financial-industrial linkages between Hong Kong
and the Mainland is not inconsistent with promoting industrial innovation and development
within Hong Kong itself. 81
Considerations along this line surely underpinned strategic
investments in the New Territories’ Science and Technology Parks, in the spectacular Chek Lap
Kok international airport facilities, in efficient internal transport systems, and in the university
system. Similar considerations justify expanding such investments. Creative political and
business leaders can surely demonstrate that the continuing distinctiveness of a vibrant and open
Hong Kong enhances its long-term role as a positive contributor to sustainable economic and
political development throughout the Mainland. Hong Kong’s history suggests that the broader
society within which its IFC remains embedded is resilient and quite capable of supporting a
complex political and economic strategy. Now is the time to bolster the governing capacity
required to implement it.
81 The Savantas Policy Institute sponsored an outstanding long-term study that speaks directly to this theme. Its main
papers were recently synthesized and published in Douglas B. Fuller, ed., Innovation Policy and the Limits of
Laissez-faire: Hong Kong's Policy in Comparative Perspective, London: Palgrave Macmillan, October 2010.
88