PACIFIC RIM TRADE : Profiles : For Asian Tycoons, Success Is a Matter of Seizing Initiative : Whether manufacturing toys or exporting rice, these business leaders have prospered by knowing when to make their moves. : LI KA-SHING, 65, <i> Hong Kong taipan </i>

People in Hong Kong call him chiu yan , or Superman. Li Ka-shing is easily the British colony’s most admired man.

He is also the fourth-richest person in Asia behind the Sultan of Brunei and Japanese property tycoons Minoru Mori and Toichi Takenaka.

He has a business empire that straddles the globe, from oil fields in Canada to a telecommunications network in Britain, to container terminals in southern China. His personal wealth has been estimated at $3.5 billion, according to Forbes.

Born in China, Li has a network of powerful allies. He quit school at age 14 when his schoolteacher father died. With a mother, younger brother and sister to support, the young Li started off selling plastic flowers and watchbands.

But by 1950, Li had made his first million and opened his own plastics factory. Five years later he set up Cheung Kong (Holdings) Ltd., now one of Hong Kong’s leading property development and investment holding companies.

A turning point in Li’s fortunes came in 1979, when the Hong Kong Bank sold him its 22.8% stake in Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., enabling Li to become the first Chinese to control one of five traditionally British hongs, or British-owned trading houses, in Hong Kong.

Li, whose sights are set firmly on China, was appointed in June, 1993, as a working committee member of the Preparatory Committee for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The Hong Kong SAR’s future hinges on Beijing’s adherence to a “one country, two systems” formula, which promises that the colony can maintain its freewheeling economic and social system for at least 50 years after 1997, when Hong Kong reverts to Chinese sovereignty.