Hong Kong 2.0 - Preface

To understand Hong Kong in transition a little, take a look of Rebecca MacKinnon’s preface (in English with Chinese translation) to Charles Mok’s new book Hong Kong 2.0 (in Chinese). Here is an exceprt (emphasis mine),

In Hong Kong version 1.0, it was the tycoons, pop stars, celebrity politicians and the media’s favorite “pundits” who had most of the power and influence. In the 1.0 version of any country or territory, getting attention and having an impact was much more difficult without access to substantial investment capital, without contracts from recording or film studios, without access to a printing press or broadcasting channel, without somebody to publish and distribute your books, without journalists who agree to interview you and put your quotes in the newspaper or soundbites on television, and so forth.

Now Hong Kong and all of the world’s modern cities are facing the 2.0 era. Successful transition from 1.0 to 2.0 will be key for maintaining Hong Kong’s competitive edge in the global knowledge economy. In a global knowledge economy, competitiveness increasingly depends on a country or territory’s ability to innovate: innovation not only in terms of business, products and services; but also innovation that creates the kind of working and living environment in which the world’s top knowledge workers – and their families – can live happy and healthy lives.

As a cosmopolitan, multicultural city with one of the world’s most highly educated populations, Hong Kong 2.0 has the potential to be one of the world’s most vibrant and creative places. In Hong Kong 2.0, ideas and innovations in all fields would be able to emerge from the “bottom up” rather than from the “top down;” from the “edges” rather than from the “center” – after all, experience shows that the best business ideas and most exciting cultural innovations in the past few years have tended to come from the most unexpected places, and almost never from a government planner’s desk.