The Hong Kong government prides itself on being pro-business with ultra-light-touch regulation. You can tell as much every time you breathe in. Looking out of my office window, I can just about make out the surrounding hills through the milky haze. Across Hong Kong Harbour – these days more of a river after years of manic reclamation – the land quickly fades into a toxic shroud.
The world has rightly focused on the alarming sight of soot-black air swallowing whole cities on the Chinese mainland. On Tuesday in Zhejiang province, such was the blanket of ambient muck that a factory fire went unnoticed for three hours. Even Li Keqiang, vice-premier, acknowledged that Beijing needed to do something about what the US’s finest scientific brains have described as “crazy bad” pollution.
Hong Kong’s air quality is not quite as bad as in many mainland cities. That is not saying much. The former British colony is an evermore toxic environment in which to live and bring up children. As a post-industrial city specialising in banking and tourism, with per capita income of $50,000 in purchasing power parity terms, it has no excuse.