Hong Kong's rapid economic improvement during the…

Hong Kong's rapid economic improvement during the 1850s has attracted foreign investment, as potential stakeholders had become more confident in Hong Kong's future.

Hong Kong's administrative infrastructure had quickly been built up by early 1842, but piracy, disease, and hostile Qing policies towards Hong Kong had prevented the government from attracting merchants.

The Taiping Rebellion, during which many wealthy Chinese have fled mainland turbulence and settled in the colony, has improved conditions on the island.

Further tensions between the British and Qing over the opium trade had escalated into the Second Opium War, after which the defeated Qing had again been forced to give up land, ceding Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutter's Island in the Convention of Peking.

By the end of this war, Hong Kong will have evolved from a transient colonial outpost into a major entrepôt.