Although China is often portrayed as inward-looking, its history is replete with examples of those who left seeking enlightenment, trade or exploration.

Whether this is testament to a Janus- like aspect of the Chinese psyche or mere evaporation from the surface of the vast sea of the Chinese people, Hong Kong has long been the place where this sea first meets the shore.

And shorelines, being places of change and turbulence, are often places of evolution.

The recent Hong Kong Arts Festival and Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival show how fertile the resulting tidal pools can be.

In addition to the increasing evidence that Hong Kong is neither the intellectual nor literary desert it is sometimes made out to be - literary festival sessions on everything from globalism to "the essay" were filled (literary, in the case of the Fringe Club) to the rafters - other more subtle developments can also be discerned by reading between the lines.

A new type of Chinese writer seems to be emerging, one increasingly comfortable in the West and in English - or occasionally French - as often as not active in film as well as the printed word, and who, in spite of long sojourns overseas, can be still be said to live in China itself; people who are cosmopolitan, articulate, with Chinese sensibilities and Western artistic aspirations.

These people need Hong Kong, and Hong Kong needs them.

For example, Hong Kong is currently going through a process of educational and curricular reform; one aspect of the general question "What should every student know when he or she finishes secondary school or university?" is the specific question of how Hong Kong students should approach China and Chinese culture.

There is a political aspect to this issue, of course, one which may be less than entirely conducive to education, yet for which there is surely no shortage of people willing and able to provide advice, just as there is surely considerable expertise available on traditional Chinese culture.

But when it comes to contemporary Chinese culture - culture in the broadest sense, not just the arts - and, of particular relevance to Hong Kong, the ways in which Chinese and Western culture interact and, perhaps more importantly, will interact in the years to come, who can be sought for guidance?

If Hong Kong has a cultural future within China, it will be as the place where Chinese and the world fuse or, at the very least, the place where Chinese culture uses the mechanisms of international distribution and commerce to expand worldwide.

These writers are people currently living this trajectory; we should try to get them into Hong Kong's orbit.

And what, after all, are Hong Kong values if not these, to be the place where China engages the world? And this is what we have to offer these high-fliers: a place where artistic ability can be sustained by commerce, where being a "writer-in-residence" in an academic institution offers not stimulation and interaction but also the possibility of a living wage, where English-speakers understand China, where literature can be the basis for a livelihood, yet still part of the place that provides cultural nourishment.

Such people are not restricted to the literary arts, of course. If you missed the arts festival recital of Chinese mezzo-soprano Yang Guang, you can only hope that Hong Kong manages to lure her back from engagements that will surely include the world's greatest opera houses in the not-too-distant future.

I have heard some famous sopranos sing O Don Fatale from Don Carlo over the years, but never, I think, quite as believably as Yang did the other night. She richly deserved the ovation that went on for a good 10 minutes.

Hong Kong may not have the largest population of cognoscenti, but its Western traditions provide audiences with a solid appreciation for quality.

Regardless of which city in China the artists might call home, the sort of reception Yang received here must make a difference.

And although a Chinese writer may sell more books in absolute terms in Britain or America than in Hong Kong, he or she is unlikely ever to be considered mainstream. But Hong Kong is a place where such a writer, or singer, or performer, can become part of the fabric of academic, cultural and intellectual life.

So, what should we do? Go recruit them as, I imagine, Li Yundi and Lang Lang were recruited, for the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme. We have much to offer and they have much to contribute.