Hong Kong is the outstanding emblem of change. Over the last quarter century, this tiny pocket of land on China’s southern coastline has been transformed beyond all recognition.
Once rough and tumble, it matured and shed its seamy image. Soaring rental prices transformed a cheap city into one affordable only to expats and rich mainlanders. Financial services, once a by-product of trading, moved to centre stage. In 2017, according to government data, it accounted for 18% of GDP, double the share of 1997, the year the city passed back into Chinese control.
But for most of that period, one thing barely changed at all: the narrow elite of super-wealthy tycoons who have dominated Hong Kong commercially since the 1970s.
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