In 2007, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region held its first-ever contested election for Chief Executive, selected by 800 members of an Election Committee drawn from roughly 7% of the ...population. The outcome was a foregone conclusion, but the process allowed a pro-democracy legislator to obtain enough nominations to contest the election. The office of Chief Executive is as unique as the system used to fill the office, distinct from colonial governors and other leaders of Chinese provinces and municipalities. The head of the HKSAR enjoys greater autonomous powers, such as powers to nominate principal officials for Chinese appointment, pardon offenders and appoint judges. Despite its many anti-democratic features, the Election Committee has generated behavior typically associated with elections in leading capitalist democracies and has also gained prominence on the mainland as the vehicle for returning Hong Kong deputies to the National People's Congress. This book reviews the history and development of the Election Committee (and its predecessor), discusses its ties to legislative assemblies in Hong Kong and Mainland China, and reflects on the future of the system.
In this new edition, Tim Summers brings his analysis of the politics of Hong Kong fully up to date and discusses the ramifications for the city of the mass demonstrations of June 2019 and the ...intensifying confrontational politics that has culminated in China's new security laws effectively criminalizing dissent in the city.
Hong Kong as a world city draws on a rich variety of foundational "texts" in film, fiction, architecture and other forms of visual culture. The city has been a cultural fault-line for centuries - a ...translation space where Chinese-ness is interpreted for "Westerners" and Western-ness is translated for Chinese. Though constantly refreshed by its Chinese roots and global influences, this hub of Cantonese culture has flourished along cosmopolitan lines to build a modern, outward-looking character. Successfully managing this perpetual instability helps make Hong Kong a postmodern stepping-stone city, and helps make its citizens such prosperous and durable survivors in the modern world. This volume of essays engages many fields of cultural achievement. Several pieces discuss the tensions of English, closely associated with a colonial past, yet undeniably the key to Hong Kong's future. Hong Kong provides a vital point of contact, where cultures truly meet and a cosmopolitan traveller can feel at home and leave a sturdy mark. Contributors include John Carroll, Carolyn Cartier, David Clarke, Elaine Ho, Douglas Kerr, Michael Ingham, C. J. W.-L. Wee, Chu Yiu-Wai, Gina Marchetti, Esther M.K. Cheung, Pheng Cheah, Chris Berry, and Giorgio Biancorosso.
This edited volume is a compilation of the analyses written by East Asian Institute experts on Hong Kong since the handover. It covers most, if not all the important events that have taken place in ...Hong Kong since 1997, including its economic integration and relations with China, its governance conundrums, the Hong Kong identity and nation-building, the implementation of the minimum wage, and the elections from 2011-2012. The book's panoramic view of Hong Kong makes it a useful resource for readers who seek a broad understanding of the city and how it has evolved after its return to China. It also offers some glimpses into the direction Hong Kong is heading in its socio-economic relations with China at both the state and society levels, as well as its domestic political developments and the prospects for democratization.
This book reviews the political development of Hong Kong before and after 1997, in particular the evolution of state-society relations in the last two decades, to analyze the slow development of ...democracy and governance in Hong Kong after 1997.
This book
In July 1997, Hong Kong ceased to be a British colony, five million people lost their status as British subjects. It was always clear that the last five years of British rule would be fraught with ...uncertainty. Dimbleby examines the crisis.
The world economic landscape has experienced seismic changes in the fifteen years after restoration of sovereignty over Hong Kong from Britain to China. Fortunately the Hong Kong economy has remained ...steadfast and is still making progress, but public confidence in the governance of the SAR government has declined, and economic and social dissatisfaction have flared. Where should Hong Kong go from here in the face of all kinds of contradictions? Economist Yue Chim Richard Wong provides an analysis of the origins of these contradictions and shares his insights on these issues. All those concerned about Hong Kong’s future should not miss this collection of essays.
Between 1949 and 1997, Hong Kong transformed from a struggling
British colonial outpost into a global financial capital. Made
in Hong Kong delivers a new narrative of this metamorphosis,
revealing ...Hong Kong both as a critical engine in the expansion and
remaking of postwar global capitalism and as the linchpin of
Sino-U.S. trade since the 1970s. Peter E. Hamilton explores the
role of an overlooked transnational Chinese elite who fled to Hong
Kong amid war and revolution. Despite losing material possessions,
these industrialists, bankers, academics, and other professionals
retained crucial connections to the United States. They used these
relationships to enmesh themselves and Hong Kong with the U.S.
through commercial ties and higher education. By the 1960s, Hong
Kong had become a manufacturing powerhouse supplying American
consumers, and by the 1970s it was the world's largest sender of
foreign students to American colleges and universities. Hong Kong's
reorientation toward U.S. international leadership enabled its
transplanted Chinese elites to benefit from expanding American
influence in Asia and positioned them to act as shepherds to
China's reengagement with global capitalism. After China's reforms
accelerated under Deng Xiaoping, Hong Kong became a crucial node
for China's export-driven development, connecting Chinese labor
with the U.S. market. Analyzing untapped archival sources from
around the world, this book demonstrates why we cannot understand
postwar globalization, China's economic rise, or today's Sino-U.S.
trade relationship without centering Hong Kong.
James Stewart Lockhart called it "the great difference". Returned from an inspection tour of the newly leased extension to Hong Kong territory in August 1898, Lockhart, a senior Hong Kong colonial ...official, had used this phrase to describe the gulf betwee
Hong Kong is among the richest cities in the world. Yet over the past 15 years, living conditions for the average family have deteriorated despite a robust economy, ample budget surpluses and record ...labour productivity. Successive governments have been reluctant to invest in services for the elderly, the disabled, the long-term sick, and the poor, while education has become more elitist. The political system has helped to entrench a mistaken consensus that social spending is a threat to financial stability and economic prosperity. In this trenchant attack on government mismanagement, Leo Goodstadt traces how officials have created a ‘new poverty’ in Hong Kong and argues that their misguided policies are both a legacy of the colonial era and a deliberate choice by modern governments, and not the result of economic crises. This provocative book will be essential reading for anyone wishing to understand why poverty returned to Hong Kong in this century.
