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Quizzed on various aspects of the HKSAR Government’s new blueprint for economic and social development, Mr Lee said the inaugural Five-Year Plan set out five main objectives for Hong Kong: better livelihoods for all; breakthroughs in economic development; expanding global competitiveness and influence; faster development of the Northern Metropolis; and to better serve the country.

On expanding global competitiveness, Mr Lee said the Government would make good use of its international networks.

“The strength of Hong Kong is its international status, and we have been emphasising on how we ensure the internationalism or the ‘internationalness’ of Hong Kong. We are expanding to cover every part of the world where we can reach,” Mr Lee said, noting that the Government had offices, including Economic and Trade Offices, and the offices of Invest Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, in countries around the world. “I’m very serious about expanding our network.”

Since taking office four years ago, Mr Lee has led delegation visits to regions, including ASEAN Member States, the Middle East, and recently Central Asia. “And my colleagues really go more often to different parts of the world, so for South Africa, and also Kenya and these are the very popular African places that my colleagues go to visit,” he added.

To boost Hong Kong’s influence in overseas markets, Mr Lee highlighted the example of the International Organization for Mediation (IOMed).

“We are very proud to have the headquarters of IOMed set up in Hong Kong, because this is an organisation which is of United Nations status,” Mr Lee said. He added that an international office would be set up in Hong Kong under the global network of corruption prevention authorities. “Hong Kong is an international city, which not just is very good at doing business, but is exercising its responsibility as a global participator, and also, we really can contribute.”

“And this is also very important, because it just means how, in different areas, Hong Kong is doing very well, and also very connected to the world. And not just being a member, but being a contributor, being really a driver, and we want to share our good experiences, and also learn from other experiences.”

The First Five-Year Plan and the 2026 Policy Address placed strong focus on speeding up the development of the Northern Metropolis (NM) project, so as to boost long-term economic development, improve people’s livelihoods and help the city to further integrate into overall national development.

“The Northern Metropolis represents about one third of our geographical area. So it is a big piece of land that gives us new opportunities. An opportunity to upgrade ourselves, both from the accommodation angle as well as development angle,” Mr Lee said.

Beyond the city’s core economic strengths such as finance, shipping and trade, Mr Lee said the NM would provide room for diversifying local industries, creating new jobs and a brighter future as more development opportunities emerge from different kinds of industries as well as closer alignment with national development.

“The NM is actually mentioned in our country’s 15th Five-Year Plan. That means it is not just a Hong Kong development, it has been elevated as a state-driven project. And with the elevation of position, we will have to work hard. And I am sure that the Central Government will also help us to ensure that this will be a success story.

“And so, doing the Five-Year Plan has this advantage. We will capitalise on all the opportunities that the state can give us. At the same time, we will remain very fully connected to the international world. So we have the beauty of both worlds.”

Asked about Hong Kong’s approach to adopting artificial intelligence (AI), Mr Lee stressed the need to take advantage of the opportunities brought by AI, while also protecting against the risks of AI, in areas such as crime, fraud, sexual abuse and potential negative impacts on younger people.

“Last year, we talk very much about how we should benefit from the application of AI, how it will do things faster, and how it will also do things more correctly,” Mr Lee said.

“So while we develop and ensure people understand and use it, we also need to tell everybody the potential risks that it will bring.”

Mr Lee said the Government would create a post of Commissioner for AI, with a mandate that he is “the chief for the whole government, in terms of AI. It means setting the policy. It means coordinating resources, identify problems for them, setting the best practices, issuing guidelines. And also, very importantly, is developing AI for the whole of government with a view to, after we have developed our experience, let the world also learn from these experiences.”

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Bae said South Korea was still trying to close the gap with leading AI powers while creating new markets, making its position different from countries or companies at the technological frontier. “We cannot afford to slow down AI right now,” he wrote on social media, describing the government’s approach as one of “speed responsibility” rather than speed control.

His remarks place Seoul firmly on the acceleration side of a widening debate over whether developers should moderate the pace of capable AI systems. Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has called for a slowdown in frontier model development to allow more time for safety work, while OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and other technology leaders have voiced support for stronger precautions as capabilities advance.

Bae said South Korea should continue expanding research, industrial adoption and home-grown model development while strengthening protections against deepfakes, cyber threats and privacy violations. Faster progress, he said, required safety and trust measures to move at the same pace rather than follow after deployment.

The minister pointed to a broader technology agenda that includes sovereign foundation models, systems capable of processing vision and language, and models able to interact with physical environments. He said the country also needed to prepare for AI becoming deeply embedded across industries and everyday life.

The government has made domestic foundation-model development a central part of its ambition to place South Korea among the world’s top three AI powers. The Ministry of Science and ICT has been running a sovereign AI foundation model programme intended to improve domestic capabilities and reduce dependence on foreign technology.

Three teams led by Upstage, SK Telecom and LG AI Research advanced after the programme’s second-stage evaluation this year. The ministry has said models developed under the initiative were built with comparatively limited resources but were released as open source as part of an effort to expand the domestic AI ecosystem.

Bae indicated that further details on the next phase of the foundation-model programme would be announced after ongoing reviews. His comments also referenced government work on security-focused AI models and frontier systems, alongside an “AI for All” initiative intended to spread adoption across the economy.

The policy push is being developed alongside South Korea’s AI Basic Act, which establishes rules covering both the development of artificial intelligence and the creation of a framework for trust. The law’s stated purpose includes protecting rights and human dignity while supporting quality of life and national competitiveness.

That legal structure gives Seoul a basis for pursuing faster adoption without presenting safety as a separate objective. Bae said competitiveness and sustainability were linked, arguing that development speed and safeguards should advance together.

The global dispute has intensified as leading executives and policymakers weigh the economic benefits of faster AI deployment against concerns over misuse and loss of control. Amodei has proposed independent safety evaluators, coordination among major laboratories and greater international cooperation, while Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has argued against slowing technological progress and favours advancing safety alongside innovation.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday backed calls for greater caution and said frontier AI laboratories would be invited for talks on managing risks. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, by contrast, said AI companies already had strong incentives to build systems safely and did not require an industry-wide slowdown.

Bae’s intervention highlights the competitive pressures facing countries outside the United States and China, where most frontier AI investment and model development remains concentrated. South Korea has strong semiconductor and technology industries, but its government has acknowledged the need to strengthen domestic models, computing capacity and commercial adoption to narrow the gap.

The Ministry of External Affairs said Pakistan’s Charge d’Affaires was called in and a strong protest lodged over what it described as “unacceptable and unprofessional conduct” by Pakistani naval units. The ministry said the conduct led to a collision with a unit of the Indian Navy and urged Pakistan’s authorities to ensure that military units exercise due care and observe existing bilateral agreements.

The collision occurred on Tuesday while a frontline warship from India was conducting what officials described as a routine surveillance mission. Officials from India said a Pakistan Navy vessel approached at high speed before the vessels collided. No major damage was reported, and there was no immediate public statement from Pakistan’s government or military responding to New Delhi’s account.

India also instructed its top diplomat in Islamabad to lodge a similar protest with Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry. The exchange elevated what could otherwise have remained a maritime safety incident into a formal diplomatic dispute between two nuclear-armed neighbours whose military contacts are governed by a series of confidence-building arrangements.

New Delhi said the episode breached a 1991 bilateral agreement covering military exercises, manoeuvres and troop movements. Under that agreement, naval ships and submarines of the two countries are required to remain at least three nautical miles apart in international waters to reduce the risk of accidents. India’s foreign ministry said the Charge d’Affaires had been asked to convey the need for all military units to respect those provisions and prevent a recurrence.

Pakistan had not, as of Wednesday afternoon, issued its own description of the encounter, leaving key operational details — including the precise movements of the vessels before impact — based on India’s official account. No ship names, casualty reports or detailed damage assessments were released publicly by either side.

The incident is the clearest publicly acknowledged military encounter between the neighbours since four days of hostilities in May 2025. That fighting followed an April 22 attack on tourists in Pahalgam, in Jammu and Kashmir, that killed 26 people. India blamed Pakistan for supporting cross-border terrorism, an allegation Islamabad rejected, and the crisis developed into missile, drone and artillery exchanges before both sides announced an understanding to halt the fighting.

Relations have remained strained since then despite the cessation of large-scale hostilities. Diplomatic ties had already been downgraded in 2019 amid disagreements over Kashmir, and neither country currently posts an ambassador in the other’s capital, with missions headed by Charges d’Affaires.

The latest protest focused narrowly on maritime conduct rather than broader political disputes. India’s statement did not announce retaliatory military measures or new diplomatic restrictions, and it called instead for compliance with the bilateral framework designed to prevent accidents between armed forces operating near one another.

The northern Arabian Sea is routinely used by both navies for patrols, exercises and surveillance. The 1991 agreement was intended to create practical safeguards at times of tension, alongside notification procedures for certain military activities. Its distance requirement gives commanders a defined separation standard when vessels or submarines from the two countries encounter each other beyond territorial waters.

The military relationship remains sensitive because both countries maintain forces across the Line of Control in Kashmir and continue to accuse each other of hostile activity. Their 2025 confrontation demonstrated how quickly a security incident can widen across domains, although neither government indicated on Wednesday that the naval collision had triggered wider force movements or changes in military posture.

Tuesday’s collision did not produce the kind of damage that would normally force a ship out of service, according to India’s account. The absence of reported casualties limited the immediate operational consequences, but the diplomatic summons ensured the episode received attention at the highest working level between the two foreign ministries.

The 2026-2030 plan, released on Wednesday, calls for an integrated gold ecosystem covering storage, trading, clearing, refining and related financial services, while encouraging more renminbi-denominated commodity products. The government said it would strengthen links with mainland exchanges and attract international investors as it develops the city’s role as a global offshore renminbi centre.

It describes gold as an asset and envisages a one-stop storage, trading and clearing centre.

The strategy gives formal five-year backing to a gold-market expansion already under way. Hong Kong began trial operations of a central clearing and settlement system for gold in July and plans to launch the system formally in the first quarter of 2027. The administration is also seeking to expand storage capacity, improve refining capability and support more gold dealers and financial institutions in establishing operations in the city.

The plan says Hong Kong will explore renminbi-denominated gold and commodity markets and deepen co-operation with the Shanghai Gold Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchange. It also aims to increase the range of products priced in the Chinese currency and encourage the use of renminbi for pricing and settlement in spot commodity transactions.

Chief Executive John Lee’s administration has framed the programme as part of a broader effort to strengthen Hong Kong’s position as an international financial centre while aligning more closely with China’s national development priorities. The five-year plan also seeks to enlarge the city’s offshore renminbi business, improve liquidity support and expand the range of renminbi bonds and other financial products.

Hong Kong remains the world’s largest offshore renminbi market. The government said offshore renminbi lending reached a record 935 billion yuan in 2025, while renminbi bond issuance reached 1 trillion yuan for a second consecutive year. The new plan proposes a dedicated offshore renminbi liquidity provision mechanism and wider use of the currency in trade, investment, financing and government expenditure.

Gold is intended to provide the first platform for a wider commodities push. The government said Hong Kong would use its status as an approved delivery point in the London Metal Exchange’s global warehousing network to develop trading, risk-management and financing services across additional commodities.

Since Hong Kong joined the LME warehousing network in 2025, approved storage space has exceeded 60,000 square metres and metal inventories have risen above 20,000 tonnes, according to the government. Authorities plan to facilitate more LME-approved warehouses in the Northern Metropolis and introduce a half-rate tax concession for physical commodity trading to attract additional market participants.

The Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing group also plans to announce details this year for new renminbi-denominated, physically settled gold futures contracts. The government said the contracts are intended to strengthen the currency’s role in precious-metal pricing and provide another channel for international investors to gain renminbi exposure.

Other measures include possible tax concessions for qualifying gold and commodity activities, additional insurance capacity for gold storage and trading, and support for an industry-led trade association. Officials are also examining tokenised warehouse-receipt financing and blockchain-based systems that would allow commodity inventories to be used more flexibly as collateral.

The administration has set a target of lifting Hong Kong’s gold storage capacity to more than 2,000 tonnes within three years. It is also encouraging internationally qualified refiners to establish or expand local operations, with government agencies assisting interested companies in identifying sites and navigating regulatory requirements.

Closer integration with mainland markets is another element of the strategy. The plan calls for wider market access between Hong Kong and mainland gold markets and further collaboration with the Qianhai Mercantile Exchange, including development of renminbi-settled commodity futures, options and spot products.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Monday that artificial intelligence was a consequential technology for humanity and should be developed openly and inclusively. Asked about calls from Dario Amodei, Sam Altman and Elon Musk for companies to slow frontier development, Guo warned that “fear-mongering, confrontation and vicious competition” would hinder sound global AI governance.

The response came as Washington’s debate over AI safety widened into a strategic argument about China. Anthropic chief executive Amodei has urged tougher safeguards for advanced systems and has argued that a Chinese lead in frontier AI could create national security risks for the United States. OpenAI chief executive Altman and Musk have also called for stronger precautions as systems become more capable.

Trump, however, has resisted proposals that could materially slow US development. He said this week that America already had tools to police the industry and stressed the importance of maintaining leadership over China. House Speaker Mike Johnson similarly rejected a moratorium, saying any pause could hand Beijing a competitive advantage and create national security risks.

The dispute places AI governance among the issues likely to shadow the Trump-Xi meeting scheduled for September 24 in Washington. The leaders are also expected to confront trade disputes, semiconductor restrictions and China’s controls on rare-earth exports, all of which affect the broader contest over computing capacity and advanced manufacturing.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is due to meet Vice-Premier He Lifeng before the summit.

China has presented a different framework for AI governance, emphasising access, development and multilateral rules while opposing measures it regards as technological containment. At the BRICS summit this month, Xi proposed an open-source and inclusive AI initiative and said China would help establish a BRICS AI open-source community and digital ecosystem platform.

Beijing has nevertheless acknowledged the risks posed by increasingly powerful systems. Chinese officials have called for stronger global governance and risk awareness, while arguing that safety should not become a justification for blocking technological diffusion. The government has also supported the establishment of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, whose founding agreement was signed in Shanghai in July by 29 countries.

The argument over safety is closely linked to semiconductor controls. Washington has maintained restrictions on the export of advanced computing technology to China, although the Commerce Department in January shifted applications for Nvidia H200, AMD MI325X and comparable chips to case-by-case review under specified security conditions. Beijing has repeatedly criticised US technology restrictions as discriminatory and has threatened countermeasures when Chinese companies are targeted.

China’s Commerce Ministry last week also challenged a US cybersecurity advisory accusing China-based AI companies of using distillation campaigns against American models. The ministry said China was prepared for an intergovernmental AI dialogue with the United States but would respond if Washington used such allegations to suppress Chinese firms.

That exchange underscored the difficulty of separating AI safety from the strategic rivalry. US officials and technology executives increasingly frame advanced models as both commercial assets and national security capabilities, while China portrays broad restrictions as attempts to preserve US dominance.

There are areas of overlap. Both governments have said advanced AI presents risks requiring governance, and the two sides have agreed to launch an intergovernmental dialogue on the technology. Informal discussions among researchers and policy specialists have also continued, though official positions remain far apart on access to chips, model controls and the balance between safety and development.

The September 24 summit follows Trump’s May visit to China, when the two leaders agreed to pursue what the White House described as strategic stability and set up new bilateral trade and investment mechanisms. Artificial intelligence was not the centrepiece of those agreements, but it has since moved higher on the bilateral agenda as concerns over model capabilities, export controls and industrial competition have intensified.