Even with smog, Hong Kong still has fine views.

So how sensitive has Hong Kong become to reports of its worsening air pollution?

Quite sensitive, it seems, if a local English-language newspaper is any gauge. I’m in Macau now, another former colony about 40 miles south of Hong Kong, and the air pollution here today was severe. Both Hong Kong and Macau are often blanketed by smog from the heavily industrialized Pearl River Delta region of China.

Yesterday’s South China Morning Post carried a front-page story about the arrival of Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 cruise liner, seen above. A lecture given to passengers before disembarking for the day described the city as “extremely polluted” – so bad that it was not worth climbing The Peak to seek Hong Kong from on high because pollution would block the view. (I can't offer a link to the newspaper article because it is a subscription website)

One Hong Konger grew irate at the description and sent a letter to the newspaper in complaint before re-embarking bound for Dubai.

But the same day, Hong Kong hosted its famous marathon, drawing 37,438 runners. This is the same marathon that last year left one runner dead and 5,000 sick from smog. This year, about 6,200 runners needed medical attention after the race. Most of them grew ill from high humidity. But an air pollution index hit the “medium” level, half of last year’s level but still enough to be a factor in making people fall sick.

Today’s South China Morning Post carries a letter to the editor from James Warren, a Hong Kong resident.

“In three years of living here, I have been sick more often than I have ever been in my life. I have just spent a week in Australia and was amazed to find my sinuses were perfectly clear and my eyes did not itch. Back in Hong Kong, guess what? My eyes grew itchy and my nose blocked up on the taxi ride home from the airport.”

Warren said he would “leave today” if it were not for his Hong Kong-born wife, and go “anywhere I can take in a lungful of air without gagging.”

Hong Kong's future as a cosmopolitan and world-class trading city doesn't look as bright if foreigners are dying to leave.