Still, all of this reminded me of an evening back in June of 1997, when I attended a small conference in Hong Kong a few days before the handover of the province from Great Britain to China. Speaking off the record, a powerful newspaper executive in the region stressed that there were only two men in the world who truly threated the Chinese authorities. Of course, one of the visiting journalists immediately asked, “Who?†He said, “Pope John Paul II and Bill Gates.â€