And that was precisely the mood Nov. 2, when Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa formally announced that an agreement with Disney had been reached. Disney also thinks it has found the right partner. It's no fairy story. Tung Chee-hwa wants his city to be the London or New York of Asia. The city's not all a concrete jungle.
Critics believe the government is partly to blame.
He has succeeded, and Beijing has largely kept its distance. But, for some, the cost of Tung's emphasis on Hong Kong's relationship with the mainland has been that the place has become less international. Singapore has been the principal beneficiary of Hong Kong's identity crisis. Thanks to timely economic and financial reforms and shedding some of its nanny-state image, Singapore has stolen much of Hong Kong's limelight and pinched a number of its multinational corporations. The Disney deal does not come complete with a magic wand to waft away the Special Administrative Region's woes.