The suggestions put forward during the plan’s consultation period offer grounds for optimism for a revitalised future
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenDavid DodwellDavid Dodwell is a journalist focused on Hong Kong and China since the 1970s. Published: 4:30pm, 16 Aug 2026I’m a little perplexed and bemused by the brouhaha surrounding Hong Kong’s decision to draft its first five-year plan, as if the sky is falling in around the city’s famed laissez-faire economy.Predictably, Yale University’s Stephen Roach (he of “Hong Kong is over” fame) warned in a commentary last month that “Chinese-style central planning” could “over-promise and under-deliver”. In a 2024 commentary, he said Hong Kong had been “shackled by the deadweight of autocracy”.But from my vantage point, Hong Kong is decades overdue for a long-term planning framework that can provide strategic coherence to how we optimise our future as a conduit between a radically changing China and a turbulent global economy.
Recall too Hong Kong’s old colonial days. Up to 1997, the British colonial government maintained the Central Policy Unit (CPU) to answer exclusively to the governor of the day on long-term strategic planning that aligned where necessary with the United Kingdom.
