A former senior state politician, Victor Perton, now runs the Centre for Optimism in Melbourne, Australia. This is an interesting, constructive project. The center’s website explains that it helps leaders, teams, and organizations unlock optimism, strengthen culture, and build better futures.
A significant philosophical debate about the essential nature of optimism unfolded during the 18th century. The French writer Voltaire took exception to the view held by German polymath Gottfried Leibniz that contemporary humanity existed in “the best of all possible worlds”. Voltaire satirized this view through his literary creation, Professor Pangloss, who appeared in the novella Candide. Pangloss radiated gushing optimism no matter how bleak the visible, immediate reality.
Voltaire maintained that insistent Panglossian sunniness was delusional, distracting, and thus significantly dangerous. One had to accept life with all its manifest challenges and calamities and then focus on continuous, productive, practical action: “We must cultivate our garden.”
Contemporary Chinese optimism — and Hong Kong optimism — are not Panglossian. Neither are they akin to the fervently marketed American optimism on the White House website, which, never mind the facts, tells us every day that the United States has “surged into a new era of record-setting growth”, where American intellectual leadership is “driving productivity and technological advancement”.
Instead, local Chinese optimism is firmly grounded in observed, ongoing performance improvements.
Writing in China Daily recently, Bill Condon noted how many Western commentators had written Hong Kong off — following the impact of the “black-clad” insurrection and the COVID-19 pandemic — as he reported on the way that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region had lately overtaken Switzerland as the world’s leading center for managing cross-border wealth.
Hong Kong, of course, had never written itself off. After experiencing and seeing off a conspicuously taxing period beginning in 2019, it steadily refocused on intelligent hard work and putting things right, just as it has done so many times before, after facing serious setbacks. Condon’s article expressed watchful optimism based on significant, evaluated improvements, thereby confirming Voltaire’s emphasis on the need to “cultivate your own garden”.
Indicators of Hong Kong’s steady recovery over the last several years include improving market sentiment and economic growth figures, a rising tourism industry, and the success of the new Kai Tak Sports Park. At the same time, the city has continued to face serious, continuing challenges. But even with social housing, more progress has been made in recent years than in the previous two decades.
Most recently, Hong Kong’s deep-rooted, pragmatic optimism has embraced an outer-space aspect.
In 1993, the US and Russia agreed to cooperate on building and operating a new space station, which became known as the International Space Station (ISS). Other space agencies, including those from the European Union and Japan, also joined this project. The ISS was initially installed in 1998, and the first crew boarded in 2000.
Almost 20 years ago, China formally asked to join the ISS project with a view to sending Chinese researchers into space. Russia and the EU supported this application. However, US federal legislation enacted in 2011 essentially and specifically prohibited China from participating in the ISS project.
In 2011 — the same year that the US blocked China from gaining access to the ISS — China significantly advanced the development of its own space station by gaining rendezvous and docking experience. The three core operating modules of the Tiangong space station were fully assembled by 2022. It has been continuously occupied by rotating crews ever since.
Hong Kong, of course, had never written itself off. After experiencing and seeing off a conspicuously taxing period beginning in 2019, it steadily refocused on intelligent hard work and putting things right, just as it has done so many times before, after facing serious setbacks
The ISS is due to be decommissioned, due to its age, by 2030. The expected lifespan of the Tiangong space station is 15 years (until 2037), so it is set to become the world’s only operating space station after 2030. Significant experiments aimed at advancing space travel and establishing a moon-based research station have been conducted aboard Tiangong. Many spacewalks have also been made, including the longest ever, lasting over nine hours in 2024.
Recently, Lai Ka-ying, a superintendent in the Hong Kong Police Force and a computer forensics expert, became Hong Kong’s first taikonaut arriving at the Tiangong space station on May 25. Prior to this, Lai, a mother of three, had undergone a demanding selection process and an extended period of intensive training.
Her success is widely and enthusiastically admired across Hong Kong. She is seen as someone setting an outstanding example and as a person who has boosted Hong Kong’s vision of itself and its circumspect optimism about the future. The HKSAR found itself sharing in the remarkable success story of the Tiangong space station in a fresh and exciting way.
It certainly helps that Lai demonstrates deep, natural enthusiasm for her new role. Her positive, focused, warm manner tells us that she is not just someone you might like to meet, but that she seems to be the sort of exceptional team player crucially needed for the mission she has begun. Altogether, Lai confirmed she is someone Hong Kong can rightly and easily be proud of.
Unsurprisingly, the way Hong Kong has reconfirmed its resilience over the last several years hasn’t deterred Western doomsayers from advancing their “Hong Kong is over” narrative. But when you look at the unfolding reality — both on Earth and beyond — it transpires they are also pushing back against legendary British politician Winston Churchill, who said:
“You must look at facts because they look at you”, later adding that “Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice may distort it. But there it is.”
The author is a former professor of law at the University of Hong Kong and Monash University, Australia.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.