Britain: Europe's Hong Kong?

The world is changing fast. Just 20 years ago, 1992 was heralded as the year of the Single European Market. Since then monetary union has been created and nearly destroyed, and much of Europe is coalescing around closer political union. At the same time, the world's wealth is shifting eastwards and southwards.

Over the next 10 years, Britain could reinvent itself to be for Europe what Hong Kong was -- and is -- to China: a trading post that acts as the window to the rest of the world.