On the cusp of the new millennium, Richard Li sees a Pacific century. And he wants to lead Asia into the new era.

Li's mantra is "bricks and mortar to bits and bytes" -- the theme, if not entirely the reality, of a growing commercial empire. Through a collection of companies he runs under the overall rubric of Pacific Century Group, Li has already established himself as one of Asia's most prominent business people.

As with the enormous holdings accumulated by his father, Hong Kong's pre-eminent tycoon Li Ka-shing, Richard Li's domain includes real estate and financial services. But the younger son of Li Ka-shing is making his most visible mark in technology, specifically the Internet.

In the Hong Kong technology community, which is still relatively small, Richard Li is probably the most prominent member, and his influence is rising in Asia and around the world. In an interview, he is cordial yet somewhat guarded as he talks about Hong Kong, Asia and his various business interests.

I wrote Sunday about one of them, Pacific Convergence Corp. The venture is a bold attempt to become the leading provider of high-speed, or broadband, Internet access. Its potential seems almost unlimited.

Pacific Convergence is a subsidiary of Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd., which itself is controlled by Pacific Century Group (www.pcg-group.com [http://www.pcg-group.com/]). Part of CyberWorks resembles another Asian technology conglomerate: Masayoshi Son's Japan-based Softbank Corp., which holds big stakes in Yahoo and other high-rent Internet property. It's no accident.

Pacific Convergence is one of four legs supporting CyberWorks, a publicly traded (Hong Kong Stock Exchange) company in which Silicon Valley chip-making giant Intel Corp. owns about a 13 percent stake. A second leg is CyberWorks Ventures, an Internet-focused venture-capital arm that Li says he has deliberately modeled after Softbank and the American Internet conglomerate CMGI Inc. (CyberWorks has even swapped stock with CMGI, giving each company an equity interest in the other.)

CyberWorks also owns substantial real estate in Hong Kong and other Asian cities. The best-known project, and the most controversial, is called Cyberport, a to-be-built development of high-tech offices and fancy homes and more, all connected with high-speed data links. It's a joint venture between Li and the Hong Kong government, which desperately wants to create a bigger technology base in the local economy and, if possible, create a mini-Silicon Valley in the territory. Li got the deal without public bidding, to the annoyance of rival developers. Li has deflected the criticism, and likes to talk about the potential for Hong Kong to become a technology power in its own right.

That may be a stretch. Hong Kong's economy is fiercely entrepreneurial, but "the creative side is an impediment," acknowledges Li, a Stanford University graduate.

Still, he says, there has been "tremendous change" in the local economic climate in recent months, he says, not just as a result of Asia's ongoing recovery from the financial crisis that began in mid-1997. There's also been a sharp rise in the number of people who have quit large companies to start smaller ones.

Hong Kong's educational system needs an overhaul, Li says, adding that the government understands the need. It won't happen overnight, he says.

I ask about Li's company name. Is the 21st century destined to be ruled by Asian powers, as the name might imply?

The Pacific century is about the Pacific Rim, he says, the area that surrounds the ocean, not just one side. "It includes America," Li says -- most of all, the West Coast, which has in some ways taken the U.S. economic mantle from the East Coast and Midwest by adapting from bricks and mortar to knowledge-based businesses.

That shift is in many ways a generational one. Is it the same shift that is occurring in Li's own family?

Uh-oh, there's the F question, "F" as in "Father" -- a topic Li obviously would rather not discuss. I wait until late in the interview to bring it up, and for the first time Li gets visibly fidgety, looking at his watch.

He pauses, and says his father has adapted, too. Li Ka-shing, he says, has always kept one foot firmly on the solid ground of traditional Hong Kong business but has also constantly dipped his toe into new waters. It's not an accident that his father's conglomerates have included major telecommunications holdings, he says.

Li says he's is delighted, meanwhile, with an agreement between the United States and China that could bring the world's most populous nation into the World Trade Organization. The economic liberalization taking place in China, he says will be good for Hong Kong as well as the mainland. (Hong Kong changed from a British colony into an autonomous "special administrative region" of the People's Republic of China in 1997.)

How about liberalizing the repressive Chinese political system? That will happen at its own pace, Li says carefully.

His own business, however, could be one of the catalysts that forces the issue. The Net reacts badly to censorship. Decentralization of information has massive implications, political as well as financial.

Li remains cautious. Greater access to the Net "will open the door for a lot of aspirations" among those who have the access, he says. "How that translates into sustainable reform is unclear."

###