Hong Kong ended up in a terrible mess in 2019, angry and divided. What went wrong? Whose fault was it? Like all complex problems it had multiple causes. The Western attitude was to try and ignore Chinese sovereignty and emphasise two systems. The Hong Kong population looked down on the Chinese and most of the region, regarding themselves to be rather superior. The Chinese underestimated the seriousness of the problems they had inherited in 1997 following 156 years of British colonialism. Eventually Hong Kong broke down. Now it is seeking to make a new start. It has a great opportunity. Hong Kong must fashion a much closer relationship with China. It must engage in a huge land reform programme to break the power of the tycoons. Huge inequality must be addressed. In ten years’ time, certainly twenty years’ time, Hong Kong can be very different, a place for the future. This is the opening keynote speech to a conference on the 25th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong organised by the Global Institute for Tomorrow on August 25th, 2022.