Cowperthwaite!

Writing in The Weekly Standard, Andrew Ferguson remembers John Cowperthwaite. An excerpt:

Cowperthwaite rose through the ranks and became financial secretary of the colony in 1961. For the next 10 years he had near-total control over the economic laws and regulations governing Hong Kong. By the time he left office, in 1971, the number of Hong Kongers in poverty had dropped by two-thirds, average wages had risen 50 percent, and Hong Kong had gone from one of the poorest places on earth to one of the richest.