Twenty years ago on Saturday, Britain handed sovereignty of Hong Kong to China. Today, the territory that the British State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Viscount Palmerston once described as “a barren island with hardly a house upon it,” remains one of the world’s greatest cities and its citizens enjoy one of the world’s highest standards of living.
To get a sense of Hong Kong’s success, consider the life of an elderly Hong Kong resident. Imagine an 84-year-old woman, who was born in 1932 and escaped, along with many thousands, from the mainland to Hong Kong shortly after the 1949 Revolution. In 1950, she would have been just short of her 18th birthday. What kind of a world would she have
known?
Hong Kong, with an average GDP per capita of $4,120, must have looked like paradise compared to China, where GDP per capita was $644. That was, after all, part of the reason why she defected in the first place. But, compared to the advanced countries of the West, Hong Kong was still a relative backwater. Average per capita incomes in the United Kingdom and the United States stood at $11,921 and $16,197 respectively (all figures are in 2015 U.S. dollars adjusted for purchasing power). In other words, the average resident of the colony earned 35 per cent and 25 per cent compared to British and American citizens respectively. Today, average income in Hong Kong is 37 per cent and 3 per cent higher than that in the United Kingdom and America.
Back in 1950, life expectancy in the colony was 67 years. In the United Kingdom and America it was 71 years and 70 years respectively. Once again, the tables have turned. Today, a resident of Hong Kong can expect to live to 84 years. Comparable figures for the United Kingdom and America are 81 years and 79 years respectively.
Thus, on two of the most important measures of human well-being, which is to say time spent on Earth and the material comfort enjoyed during that time, Hong Kong must surely be considered as one of the greatest success stories of all time.
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