This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, October 31st, 2017 and Caleb Brown.

Hong Kong was a barren island at the end of World War II, but under the direction of Sir John Cooper

Thwaite, Hong Kong became a powerhouse of global commerce. How did it happen?

Neil Monary is author of Architect of Prosperity, Sir John Cooper Thwaite, and the

Making of Hong Kong.

We spoke earlier this month.

Describe Hong Kong in about 1945.

Well, at that point, of course, the Second World War was coming to an end and Hong Kong had been under occupation by the Japanese since they had invaded in 42.

The population had fallen from about 1.5 million to around 600,000.

So there have been a massive exodus of people and almost everything that was of value had been taken or used.

So it was really quite a desolate place, I think.

All right, so what was its proprietary relationship with various countries?

Well, it had been a British colony for about a hundred years prior to that,

and the British were extremely keen that Hong Kong should remain a colony at the end of the Second World War,

although there were of course other forces, in particular revolutionary Chinese forces nearby.

But the British got there in time, I think, and re-established control, which was for them

an issue of prestige and a continuation of that role from before the war.

So you mentioned that there were Chinese revolutionary forces right there.

Why didn't they simply seize it?

I think they had many other other things on their mind and there was a sort of a broad agreement that that would be all right.

All right, so tell me about who John Cooper Thwaite was, That's the British pronunciation. Americans might say

cowperthwaite, but who was he? Well he was somebody who had studied classics

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