Variety is the spice of life
Much has been written about Hong Kong's economic advantages over the mainland. Treatises usually start by praising the rule of law, and go on to mention great infrastructure and a strong financial-services sector. They almost never discuss what, in this day and age, is Hong Kong's No 1 asset: the diversity of the city's immigrants.
It would be true to say that Beijing and Shanghai - not to mention the great melting pot of Shenzhen - are mainland cities with a broad ethnic make-up. Wander around Tiananmen Square or Nanjing East Road and you will see an amazing array of facial types staring at you. Like Hong Kong, these cities thrive on the contributions of migrants from every corner of the mainland. But they are just not the same as Hong Kong's. For a start, they do not have Nepalese and Filipinas to run their bars, cafes and restaurants. Joke all you like about it, but Hong Kong would not be what it is without its cheerful waiting staff. Drinking being as important a pastime as it is among those who make our financial-services sector hum, Hong Kong will maintain a strong lead over Shanghai - even if it gets a convertible currency - thanks to the quality of the people who keep our investment bankers happy after work every night.
Seriously, though, it is hard to imagine a Hong Kong without domestic helpers from the Philippines. In a purely human-capital assessment, they are undoubtedly more productive than the amah employed across the border. They teach Hong Kong children English, and they are giving legions of families a more precious gift than they could possibly get on the mainland: daily exposure to a culture of never-ending optimism. (For this, they have been rewarded with a cut in the minimum wage since October 2003. But that is for another column.)
Then there are the expatriates. Although you can count very few people left on genuine expat packages, the city nevertheless has more foreign national residents than the mainland's biggest cities combined. Shanghai is growing quickly, giving work permits on average to about 2,000 foreigners a month, but its total is still less than 50,000 - which is still more than Beijing.
Hong Kong has about 500,000 foreigners on work permits. Even if about 280,000 of those are domestic helpers, that still leaves twice as many expats as in Shanghai and Beijing together. Tourist numbers are just as enlightening. Shanghai averages about 100,000 foreign visitors a month; Hong Kong attracts about eight times that in non-mainland visitors.
These foreigners bring in much-needed skills. But more importantly for a services-based economy, they contribute valuable opinions and perspectives. They tend to challenge convention more than the locals do, and have a penchant for creative destruction - which any great city needs in order to thrive in today's global economy. They can be a thorn in many a bureaucrat's side, for sure. But at least in Hong Kong they can also be a bureaucrat.
Perhaps what gives Hong Kong its biggest edge, and what is hard to see being replicated on the mainland, is the variety of its elite: overseas Chinese from Southeast Asia; Jewish refugees from the Shanghai of 1949; and Indians, Portuguese and Eurasians who have lived away from their ancestral countries for generations. In fact, there are very few Chinese that can properly claim to be 'local', as this is such a relatively young city and many of its tycoons are first-generation immigrants.
Will this identity survive the intense Sinification campaign waged against the city since the 1997 handover? That drive grows stronger with every new public listing of a mainland company and every new arrival of an individual-permit visitor. It is a question that will take a few generations, and a lot more space than this column has, to answer.
Anthony Lawrance is a Hong Kong-based publisher
