When Queen Victoria learned, in 1841, that her empire had expanded to include the tiny Chinese island of Hong Kong she was deeply disappointed that the spoils of the first opium war amounted to so little.
“A barren rock with nary a house upon it,” that will “never be a mart for trade” is how her foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston, described it.
Today Hong Kong (“fragrant harbour” in Cantonese) is a global financial centre, gateway to the world’s second-biggest economy and one of the most densely populated places on earth.
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