The British got Hongkong as spoils of the first Opium War with China, an insult that has never been forgotten. From the beginning Chinese flooded in. They came first from Guangzhou (Canton) and the southern provinces fleeing famine and the harsh rule of the Manchu Qing dynasty, most of them with nothing to lose and thus, with thrift and hard toil, everything to gain. The colony's second major attribute its nineteenth century British and European venture capitalists, were always a small minority. But what a combination those armies of opportunity-grabbing Chinese and dour ledger-worshipping inheritors of an empire made. Hong Kong couldn't help but make money.

It has never stopped making money. It probably does it better than anywhere else in the world. Around the mid of the 20th century communist revolutionaries marched into Shanghai, the textile barons took their money and even their manufacturing equipment to Hong Kong. And the colony retooled, fattened and diversified. By 1966, Hong Kong was not only the main Southeast Asian trans-shipment point for Vietnam war materials - its harbor packed with freighters-but it was also one of the most popular R&R (rest and recreation) venues for the American troops.

By the mid-1970s Hong Kong was moving from trade, textiles and toys to trade, international banking and finance and electronics, and vastly improving its housing and public transport infrastructure. By the early 1980s it was obvious that a new China was emerging, a more pragmatic China that was prepared to leave ideology simmering on the back burner while it got its moribund economy back in order. In l982, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visited Hong Kong for the first talks on the handover of the New Territories, whose lease was due to expire in 1997. In the event, Britain agreed to hand the whole lot back. The merchants of gloom have had a field day ever since.

Although it's still early days, one thing is obvious: Hong Kong gets more prosperous by the day. It is the jewel in the crown of the Pearl River Delta - which includes Macau and southern Guangdong-one of the front-runners of the new wave of Asian economic "tigers". It welcomes more than 11 million visitors a year, including over two million business travelers and package tourists from mainland China. The "barren rock" of 150 years ago is now one the world's great cities.