Hong Kong remains wrapped in an enigma. Its intermediaries of capital, who include traders, financiers, and corporate managers, have made Hong Kong the pivot of decision-making about the exchange of capital within Asia and between that region and the rest of the world. Yet, for 150 years, this tiny island and adjacent peninsula could not even lay claim to status as a city-state. When Britain declared sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1841, after taking it from China under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking that settled the Opium War, the government and merchants had to build a town. The British viewed Hong Kong as their emporium of trade in the Far East, but they did not aspire to transform it into a commercial-military power similar to the earlier aggressive city-states of Genoa and Venice. From the start, Hong Kong and Asia remained peripheral to a British foreign policy focused on Europe, and up to 1860, the meager fleet on the China station seldom numbered more than six ships. Britain devoted greater attention to avoiding being drawn into the interior of China than to expanding trade.