Walking into the third edition of the Global Prosperity Summit, which was held from May 19 to 21 in China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, I was struck not by the grandeur of the setting or the caliber of the names on the speaker list, but by something quieter: the sound of conversation.
Diplomats from China were exchanging cards with European executives. Shanghai think-tank scholars were debating Malaysian strategists. United States investors were leaning in to hear a Hong Kong banker explain the offshore renminbi market.
In an age when the world's great capitals increasingly seem to be talking past one another, here was a room in which they were, at last, talking to one another. That, more than any communique, is the measure of what Hong Kong is and what it can yet become.
The event, jointly convened by the Savantas Policy Institute, the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies and the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, has matured remarkably since its inception in 2024. This year's gathering opened with a keynote speech from Han Zhiqiang, vice-president of the China Public Diplomacy Association, who offered forward-looking insights into the China-proposed Global Governance Initiative. He noted that the international landscape is beset by mounting instability and uncertainty, unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise, geopolitical conflicts continue to flare up, and development gaps are widening. These developments, he said, have made reform of global governance an urgent task for all peoples.
