Hong Kong, we face a challenge: to prove that we can have our cake and eat it too. We want the money of the nouveaux riches from across the border but we want our way of life to remain unchanged. We want greater prosperity through increased economic integration but we want increased security through greater political independence. We want it all. I'm all for it. Let's hang a sign at the border checkpoints that says, 'Give me your rich, your smart, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free on individual visitor permits' ... but once they are here, let's explain to them the basics of free speech: it's okay for Emily Lau to shake hands with Lee Teng-hui, just as it's okay for the China Daily to denounce her. It could work. It should work. Will it? I certainly hope so, but if I were Li Ka-shing, I would also be delaying the launch of 3G in Hong Kong until I had sorted out my British operations first. To be sure, I got a warm and fuzzy feeling on Friday when I saw Superman on the front page of this newspaper saying he was proud of the July 1 demonstrators. But it chilled when I turned inside to see the comments of Zou Zhekai, deputy director of the central government's liaison office. 'Reporters should support the reunification of the country. All publications and editorials should support 'one country, two systems',' he said. Mr Zou's opinion may be just one among many, but it sounded ominously like someone itching to use the word 'must'. So despite all his projects on the mainland, it's hardly surprising Hong Kong's richest man has invested much more money in democratic countries. It can't be said that's for lack of commitment, or of patriotism, as there is probably only one other Hong Kong-based tycoon who has invested as much as Mr Li has on the mainland. It's just a clear reflection of the fact that exploring opportunity on the mainland often involves making hard choices between responsibility to shareholders and to country - choices not likely to be encountered in a democratic country. But just because Mr Li's walk gives more pause for thought than his talk, it doesn't mean there is no hope for the cake-and-eat-it scenario. Comments from two other members of Hong Kong's politico-economic elite helped last week. The first was the new security chief, Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong, who came out quickly after Ms Lau's return to say that her Taiwan escapade would not have been in breach of draft Article 23 legislation. She may have consorted with pro-independence agitators, but she was not inciting armed rebellion. Anyone can have an opinion; it's how you act on it that counts, was the message he conveyed. The second was stock exchange head Paul Chow Man-yiu, who said he was worried about corporate governance at many Hong Kong-listed companies with mainland parents. This is like adding a clause to our border sign that says, 'Don't send us your dirty, your money-launderers ...' Coming from an institution that already depends on such companies for 30 per cent of its market capitalisation and most new equity funds raised in the first half of this year, that's gutsy. Guts are what's needed to make our half of the 'two systems' commitment work. Now if only the rest of Hong Kong's smarter business leaders would take the opportunity to duck into Mr Lee's slipstream, we might create the kind of momentum for political change that Party Central would find hard to resist. And I have a feeling we could make it work. Anthony Lawrance is the Post's managing editor