The View | Why a Trump-Kim summit in Hong Kong would suit everyone and be good for business too

Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China because we are different – we are like a minority people within China. One hundred and fifty-five years of British administration instilled a particular culture – not a British culture or a contemporary Chinese culture, but a uniquely Hong Kong culture. 

We were renowned for hard work, getting things done, making things happen. The flair of British administration let people get on with their lives and blended perfectly with the sheer hard grind of Chinese migrants.

It may not have been perfect but it was an enormous success. Many elements of our society today, such as housing, public transport, personal security, universal health care, the rule of law, and our enviously healthy public finances compare much better against equivalent societies in the West who may think that they “more developed”.

Now take North Korea, which has been isolated during a critical phase of its development. From adopting a highly aggressive stance towards almost everybody, the country has thawed its relations with the outside world in a short six months, with leader Kim Jong-un waving the olive branch first at South Korea and more recently at the US. He has negotiated with skill – going extreme, then edging back to his preferred position.

The war talk certainly spooked financial markets and it is not hard to see that Kim has probably come under a lot of pressure to negotiate.