CHINA DAILY HK EDITION
The key to Hong Kong’s growth is its people’s intellectual property — political and economic. Now that the issue over how Hong Kong’s Chief Executive should be elected in 2017 is again on the back burner, it is time for Hong Kong people to seriously focus their inherent inner strength on economic growth in intellectual property, and how best to pursue it in this Internet age. The goal is to return Hong Kong to center stage in economic development.
Hong Kong people have always been innovators and creative thinkers who repeatedly reinvent themselves. They must do so again, because Hong Kong has to get back to its roots of developing properties and products that have global appeal — and buyers.
Hong Kong was created from scratch. Globalization and commercial interaction fused the best of all civilizations here. It exemplifies what British historian Paul Johnson meant when he wrote in his analysis of the past 1,000 years: “Human beings are fantastically ingenious creatures, and usually industrious too. Given reasonably stable and just government, there is no limit to what they can achieve in time.”
Johnson goes on to cite Hong Kong as proof of how small places with virtually no resources have created stability and the good life for most of their citizens, by using their brains and, not least, by devising minimalist systems of government that work. Hong Kong is a free port that encourages the free flow of money, information and talented people from all corners of the planet.
Furthermore, Hong Kong has emerged as the centerpiece of the Pearl River Delta — one of the world’s “economic super zones”. Hong Kong is the gateway to the Middle Kingdom and the bridge to the country’s emerging economic empire in Asia and across the Pacific in the Americas — the basic ingredients necessary to become a global “intellectual property super zone”.
Hong Kong is also the best-managed city in China, probably the world. It has the population density of most cities in the country but enjoys full employment and is the most efficient and functional.
Hong Kong’s can-do “Lion Rock spirit” has repeatedly adapted its economy to the changing world — and now it must do so again, this time on the brains of its knowledge-based intellectual property developers.
Hong Kong has the science, media, technology, universities and finance, and all their intellectual properties, whose world-class developers are much more important to our growth and development than today’s real estate developer tycoons. For this city, intellectual property today is not only more important than ever, but more relevant.
Hong Kong’s history forms an essential ingredient of its education system that is needed for the development of its intellectual property. Technology, especially the software side, is dependent on a well-balanced education system, something we need to fine-tune so that we produce creative, independent thinkers who believe, like their forefathers, they can change the world.
Intellectual property is developed through experimentation by entrepreneurs who are not afraid to fail and learn from their failures. Such people may not have the grades for the best universities, but have the minds to create and innovate. For these minds to grow, the current emphasis on early — and often expensive — rote learning to secure the right grades for the right universities, should be replaced by an affordable, quality public education that encourages critical thinking and is available to everyone.
Intellectual property is developed by creative critical thinkers who need the right educational environment to thrive, plus the protection of intellectual property laws and an Innovation and Technology Bureau that encourages and helps finance and develop world-class high-tech entrepreneurs. Failure to do so will only encourage our brightest minds to flee to countries like the United States and Israel that openly and cost-effectively encourage intellectual property development.
Last month’s launch of the Hong Kong Chapter of the International Intellectual Property Commercialization Council was a great leap forward for Hong Kong.
The mainland has the finance to invest the large sums of money needed to develop the scientific facilities and infrastructure necessary for creative thinkers to develop intellectual property. Hong Kong has the human capital which, with the right educational structure, government support and collaboration with the mainland, can develop intellectual property that can propel Hong Kong to the forefront of intellectual property development globally.
The author has worked for over four decades as an attorney, banker, entertainment industry executive, co-founder of the Pets Central network of veterinary hospitals and author of the Custom Maid series of books.