[kevin_thibedeau]

> their GNP per capita is now greater than all of western europe

What if Shenzhen didn't exist across the river? HK is part of a unique economic environment with significant externalities making it prosperous.

[newyankee]

Approaches that make small countries like Singapore, Taiwan or Hongkong succesful are not easily scaled to a large one like India. Using them as examples in arguments is very disingenuous.

[missedthecue]

Just because India has 1 billion people does not mean that they would be better off buying inferior goods at higher prices.

Hong Kong is equal or larger than Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, and Ireland.

Taiwan is larger than all those, plus the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, and many others.

They are richer because of their adoption of free trade.

[unishark]

> What if Shenzhen didn't exist across the river?

I think you have this backwards. Milton Friedman was already raving about Hong Kong leading the world back in 1980.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0dfiWM-rsE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_to_Choose

The first special economic zone was created in Shenzhen in 1980, coincidentally. It's population at that time was around 60k according to this link:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/shenzhen-popu...

Hong Kong's population was in the millions at that time. The SEZ was created specifically to imitate HK and other successful neighboring economies.

[aww_dang]

Then the capital accumulated in HK would build Shenzhen, again.