Death knell? Hong Kong’s five-year plan is a starting gun

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I’m a little perplexed and bemused by the brouhaha surrounding Hong Kong’s decision to draft its first five-year plan, as if the sky is falling in around the city’s famed laissez-faire economy.Predictably, Yale University’s Stephen Roach (he of “Hong Kong is over” fame) warned in a commentary last month that “Chinese-style central planning” could “over-promise and under-deliver”. In a 2024 commentary, he said Hong Kong had been “shackled by the deadweight of autocracy”.But from my vantage...