There was a flurry of anxiety and self-searching this week as yet another survey was published, this one showing that Hong Kong still ranked as China's most competitive city but noting that its lead may be slipping. It seems that barely a month passes without the release of new rankings that produce either glee or depression in Hong Kong.
This is all very depressing because it demonstrates an astonishing lack of self-confidence and a rather pathetic yearning for external recognition. Were Hong Kong a really backward society suddenly surging forward into the global arena, this could be understandable. However it is not; Hong Kong's strengths are well established and should be able to speak for themselves.
Compare this rather neurotic seeking of external endorsement with, say, France's lack of anxiety over whether it is considered to be the world's finest wine-producing nation. When this status is questioned outside France, most of the French could not care less. Closer to home, think about how Japan created a manufacturing miracle while outside critics kept questioning its ability to achieve international competitiveness. The Japanese simply got on with the job and shut out the background noise.
I was born in London and, like many Londoners, was utterly convinced that it was the centre of the universe. I've changed my mind on that one, but the point is that the conviction of superiority was not based on what other people thought about us but on what we thought about ourselves. Yes, this smacks of a superiority complex, but it also indicates a healthy degree of self-confidence.
There is nothing wrong with being proud of your country or your city but, if that pride has to be based on the reaffirmation of outsiders, something is clearly amiss. In Hong Kong, for example, there is great excitement when the Heritage Foundation, a US-based right-wing think tank, regularly places the city at the top of its table of the world's freest economies. Ministers trot along to accept this accolade and it is widely publicised in the media. However, outside a small coterie of ideologues in the United States, this accolade is largely ignored, except in even more neurotic Singapore, which perennially ranks in the No2 slot.
The survey from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which triggered this week's excitement, warned that Hong Kong was lagging in innovation and that other Chinese cities were catching up in the competitiveness stakes. Did we really need a bunch of mainland academics to tell us that? And did we need a government spokesman to repeat, for the umpteenth time, that competitiveness was a good thing and that we all must try harder?