‘Special and different’: former envoys tout Hong Kong’s unique global value

Hong Kong should approach the world with confidence rather than worry about its place in it, two former Western diplomats have said, with one suggesting that the city remaining “special and different” from mainland China was in everyone’s interests – including the United States.

The remarks were made at the Global Prosperity Summit on Wednesday, where Sherard Cowper-Coles and Craig Allen also discussed leveraging innovation within the Greater Bay Area, and how Hong Kong should navigate the ongoing trade disputes between the US and China.

The summit was co-organised by a local think tank, the Savantas Policy Institute, the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, and the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

“I’ve always thought that Hong Kong undersells itself,” said Cowper-Coles, who served as the head of Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Hong Kong Department from 1994 to 1997.

Cowper-Coles, now chairman of the China-Britain Business Council, said that the city “spends too much time worrying about its place in the world, not realising its extraordinary assets, which … in this time and this world make it exceptionally well placed.”

Hong Kong’s role in the world has been repeatedly questioned in recent years amid the broader deterioration of relations between Beijing and the West, a situation further exacerbated by the US-China trade war.