In September 1982, Margaret Thatcher became the first British prime minister to visit China in talks over Hong Kong’s future. Her notorious stumble on the steps of the Great Hall of the People appeared to encapsulate Britain’s frustrated diplomatic efforts. Yet four days later, in Hong Kong, Thatcher inaugurated the first phase of what would become by 1990 one of the world’s largest coal-fired electricity generation plants. How are these two events connected? In this lecture, I examine developments in post-1945 colonial Hong Kong through the lens of the colony’s electrification, tracking the shifting politics of power and electric diplomacy in a narrative that draws together Thatcher, Deng Xiaoping and Laurence Kadoorie, the first Hong Kong-born British peer and the charismatic chairman of China Light & Power.