The keynote speaker, Professor Mari Elka Pangestu, Special Envoy of the President of the Republic of Indonesia for International Trade and Multilateral Cooperation and Vice Chair of the National Economic Council, delivered a diagnosis that was at once sobering and constructive. The world economy, she argued, is experiencing multiple disruptions simultaneously. Geopolitical tensions are sharpening, protectionism and unilateralism are gaining ground, and the resulting proliferation of trade restrictions is pushing economies toward fragmentation. Yet the same moment is defined by structural transformations—decarbonisation and the rapid diffusion of artificial intelligence—that are reshaping the economic landscape regardless of political turbulence. Her prescription was unambiguous: in the face of economic fragmentation, the emphasis must shift toward deepening regional cooperation rather than retreating behind national walls.

Central to her argument was a reframing of what enterprises actually need in this environment. Subsidies, she suggested, are not the answer; what firms require is the smooth flow of goods, services and people across borders. This distinction matters because industrial policy races—however politically popular—cannot substitute for the predictability, market access and mobility that allow supply chains to function. For an economy such as Hong Kong, whose historical role has been that of an intermediary and facilitator, the message lands with particular force. Its comparative advantage has never rested on subsidised production but on connectivity: financial, logistical and institutional. Preserving and extending that connectivity, especially toward the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, becomes not merely desirable but essential.

The complementarity between Hong Kong and ASEAN formed the second pillar of the keynote. Beyond traditional trade and investment flows, Professor Pangestu identified financial connectivity as the real untapped potential, noting that ASEAN is simultaneously negotiating collaboration with the European Union and upgrading its ASEAN Plus One frameworks. From a broader perspective, she argued, Asia must reject zero-sum unilateral orders and instead demonstrate courageous leadership in shaping global rules for trade, investment, artificial intelligence and climate change. This, she insisted, is not simply a strategic choice but an economic necessity: Asia’s prosperity has always been built on openness, and it will be strengthened only through deeper cooperation with regional and global partners alike.

Professor Richard Y.C. Wong, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of The University of Hong Kong, Chair of Economics, Philip Wong Kennedy Wong Professor in Political Economy and Director of the Hong Kong Institute of Economics and Business Strategy, framed the evening within a longer intellectual lineage. Nearly fifty years ago, Professor Edward K.Y. Chen was among the first scholars to study Asia’s newly industrialised economies, and the 2026 theme, Wong noted, reflects the enduring relevance of that research programme. Just as Chen and Pangestu have envisioned growing interconnectivity between Hong Kong and ASEAN amid heightened geopolitical tensions, the Business School has been building new bridges across the region—opening a centre in Ho Chi Minh City in 2022 and maintaining centres in the Chinese Mainland and Barcelona—translating thought leadership into policy influence, innovation and the formation of the next generation of leaders.

The panel discussion that followed the keynote turned principle into practice. Moderated by Dr Victor K. Fung, Chairman of Fung Investments, the session featured Professor Pangestu, the Honourable Bernard Charnwut Chan, Chairman and President of Asia Financial Holdings Ltd., and Mr Daniel R. Fung, Ambassador-at-large of the Hong Kong–ASEAN Foundation. The panellists confronted a striking statistic: Hong Kong already intermediates more than 60 percent of China’s inward foreign direct investment. Yet they cautioned that financial plumbing alone does not constitute a genuine economic bridge. What is missing, they argued, is knowledge—detailed, localised understanding of ASEAN markets, consumer behaviour, regulatory environments and business cultures that cannot be imported wholesale from the Chinese ecosystem.

The panel’s alternative was neither withdrawal nor simple replication. Instead of exporting China’s domestic model intact, leaders should leverage frameworks such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to foster shared supply chains, mutual localisation and job creation on both sides of the relationship. Mutual localisation implies that Chinese and Hong Kong enterprises embed themselves in Southeast Asian economies as genuine participants—hiring locally, building local capabilities and sharing value—rather than treating the region purely as an export platform. Job creation, in this framing, is not a by-product but a condition of political sustainability: an economic bridge endures only when populations on both ends perceive tangible benefits. The panellists also emphasised that sustaining this bridge over the long term requires reviving the deep educational and cultural ties that historically united the two regions, a reminder that economic architecture rests on human foundations.

Professor Edward K.Y. Chen himself, whose teaching and mentoring inspired the founding of the lecture series, closed the evening with a reflection on resilience. Amid an increasingly complex and uncertain geopolitical environment, he identified the silver lining in the capacity of economies to absorb shocks. If an economy is resilient, it can minimise the impact of external disruptions and even convert challenges into opportunities. But resilience, he stressed, cannot be built in isolation; it requires regional cooperation. This is why, he explained, he and Professor Pangestu both believe in multilateralism and open regionalism—arrangements whose benefits are not confined to their members but extend to countries around the world. The formulation is technically significant: open regionalism, as developed in the economics literature associated with Chen’s generation, holds that preferential regional integration need not divert trade or exclude outsiders if it remains structurally open to new participants and aligned with multilateral rules.

Established in 2007, the Edward K Y Chen Distinguished Lecture Series honours the legacy of a scholar whose work on Asia’s newly industrialised economies anticipated the region’s transformation decades before it became conventional wisdom. The annual event brings leading global figures to share insights on the future of business, innovation and society, rooted in a tradition of mentorship and academic excellence. The 2026 edition carried that tradition into contested territory, arguing that the region’s response to fragmentation should be deeper integration rather than defensive separation.

The evening’s combined message was ultimately one of agency. Geopolitical headwinds are real, and the proliferation of trade restrictions is measurable and growing. But the speakers insisted that pressure can be converted into opportunity where institutions, firms and universities invest in connectivity, knowledge and cooperation. For Hong Kong, the path runs through ASEAN; for ASEAN, through partnerships that span the Pacific and Europe; and for Asia as a whole, through leadership in writing the rules that will govern trade, investment, artificial intelligence and climate action for decades to come. In a fragmented world, the lecture argued, openness remains the region’s most valuable and most defensible asset.

Subject of Research: Regional economic cooperation between Hong Kong and ASEAN in response to global trade fragmentation and geopolitical tensions

Article Title: HKU Business School Edward K Y Chen Distinguished Lecture 2026

Article References: HKU Business School Edward K Y Chen Distinguished Lecture 2026. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: Hong Kong, ASEAN, geopolitics, trade fragmentation, regional cooperation, multilateralism, open regionalism, financial connectivity, RCEP, HKU Business School, Edward K Y Chen, economic resilience