Accepting the Chinese academic approach to a foreign language such as English would be a no brainer for HK that has quite a large population of well proficient English language users unlike on mainland China.

Actually recent letters to the SCMP by educators and parents are concerned that the english level is slipping below that of Mainland China, try going into some of the 7/11's in HK, most now only basic english, and others just speak cantonese. Despite all the years of british rule, at home Cantonese is the spoken language, not english and certainly not mandarin, of course mandarin chinese will be spoken in those from the mainland, but whenever I walk around I hear cantonese spoken more commonly than english. The fact of the matter is that post-1997, Cantonese took prominence, and I do believe all meetings in the public school sector are now conducted in it.China is actually beating HK with regards it's english teaching and english level of it's students, perhaps backed by a government drive, hence the quotas for FT's that need filling at each school.