I think it might have had to do more with being the logistics hub of the largest empire in the world, with an influx of that empire's capital for a century.

Capital favouring policies seem to work great for capital - if you have capital.

Hong Kong was always an afterthought in the British Enpire. It was never important when they had India, which they actually cared about and which was gone in 1947. Hong Kong was also less important in terms of trade than Shanghai was, that’s why HSBC, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, was headquartered in Shanghai until shortly before the communist takeover.

Hong Kong was not the logistics hub of an empire after WWII. It was the remnant of one, a place that had never been important before and wasn’t a priority to anyone in the metropole.

Capital favouring policy work great for people who live anywhere with rule of law and security of contract. If you do that you can go from bombed out war zone poverty to the first world in one lifetime, as South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong all did.

Hong Kong’s importance is on showing that industrial policy and tariffs are completely unnecessary to that process.

>Hong Kong was not the logistics hub of an empire after WWII. It was the remnant of one, a place that had never been important before and wasn’t a priority to anyone in the metropole.

Hong Kong is situated at the mouth of the Pearl River Valley, one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Important enough that the UK fought two wars to maintain the territory, and it benefited tremendously from being a border city during the Cold War.

And after WWII it was cut off from its economic hinterland until Deng Xiaoping opened China up in the 1980s. It had been occupied by the Japanese for years and they had taken it violently. During the more than 30 years it was cut off from the Pearl River Delta it took in over a million refugees. Hong Kong went from a trade entrepôt for China to growing wealthy by manufacturing and then services. Then China opened up.

>During the more than 30 years it was cut off from the Pearl River Delta it took in over a million refugees.

Many of those refugees came from the area, and chose to leave because they had wealth or experience. Meanwhile, US allied powers embargoed China while still providing assistance to Hong Kong. These things had far too great of an impact to really credit the trade policy.

> If you want to learn more read Architect of Prosperity.

Or read about survivor bias.