But the higher our standard of living, the higher our levels of education, the further people will look around. And we can see which level of openness other societies enjoy. We are no different - we too want more freedom. The question is: How much freedom will be allowed?

Our company has only been active in Beijing and Shanghai, two very market-dominated cities. This was an advantage. Land is purchased here in public auctions, in a transparent way. When you do real estate development outside Beijing and Shanghai it is good to have "guanxi" - good relations within the local government.

When we started out, we didn't really think that the era of great opportunity would end one day. We were much too busy developing our companies. But in today's China you can build a city, even a mega-city like Beijing or Shanghai, within 10 or 15 years. And then you are done. So in real estate development, the Gründerzeit is over. But that is not the case in other sectors.

I firmly believe that digitalization has only just begun in China. In addition to the taxi, transport, shopping and hotel businesses, many other industries will follow: education, health care, administration, even the legal branch - everything, really. There is still a lot of opportunity in China for the inventive and ambitious ones.

On the one hand the world is getting more integrated and we should not dismiss social values as "Western" when they are actually modern values. On the other hand, individual countries have their own history and their own evolution. Trade unions, for example, don't play the same role in China as they do in Europe or the US.

I'm afraid what we are building today will not have the same impact and sustainability of the architecture of a 100, 500 or 1,000 years ago. The buildings of those days were miracles. We don't perform such miracles today. So we should be a little more modest. For my part, I'll be glad to show one of my buildings one day to my grandchildren and say: I'm proud of that.

Isolation means a lack of growth. I grew up in China at a time when the country was completely isolated. That era is over.