Hong Kong is a Nation

In June of 1966, the spectacular view of Hong Kong’s vertiginous hills from the top-floor bar of the 26-story Hilton Hotel – now torn down and replaced by tycoon Li Ka-shing’s Cheung Kong Centre – was eerie and ominous, with smoke hanging thick in the city’s humid air. The tops of the hills appeared to be on fire, and in a sense they were.

The blazes wer…