[This article shows that Hong Kong and Singapore, the two great Asian city ports, are implementing quite different strategies to regain their competitive prowess in the global economy following setbacks in the 1997 Asian financial crisis, in an era, and at the edge of, a booming Chinese juggernaut. Each confronts a different set of opportunities and possesses a divergent set of institutions and resource endowments. So the strategies they deploy naturally differ. This is an important point in a world where policy options are often regarded as marginal at best, with most constrained by the convergence on free-market reforms allegedly compelled by globalization.