It is one of the richest places in the world, a global metropolis, Asia's financial hub, a cornucopia to commerce, one of the world's top tourist destinations, especially for shopping, with 60 million visitors predicted this year, a true rags to riches story that has seen its per capita income soar to more than $52,000, about the same as the United States and Switzerland and in the world's top 10 territories by income.
Yet the 7.2 million people of Hong Kong do not have the same rights that citizens of the U.S., United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France, Australia, Canada or India take as part of their birthright — the right to choose their own government. Now that is about to change, or so Beijing, Hong Kong's ruling power, has promised: "democracy" will finally come to Hong Kong from the 2017 election of the chief executive, who will be chosen by one-person, one-vote.
But there should be a large warning sign on that word "democracy." It is not democracy in the way that Japanese, Americans or Indians understand it — open, free-wheeling, with opportunities to question the powers that would be. It is democracy with what I would call Humpty Dumpty characteristics.