Hong Kong in Transition: The Handover Years

There may be no precedent in peacetime for the handing over of a whole society, functioning according to one set of rules, to another sovereign state which functions according to often quite different rules and values. This was the prospect facing Hong Kong, however, as it approached the handover to China in 1997. Such a transition inevitably throws up a range of pressing issues calling out for scholarly analysis. In this book leading observers of the Hong Kong scene examine issues that followed the transfer of sovereignty. Using a variety of disciplinary perspectives, they probe the impact of the handover on the business environment, the currents of political and administrative life, the constitutional and legal dilemmas of the transition, human rights and identity crises, and the prospects for Hong Kong's external relations. Will Hong Kong survive? Read this book and see what you think.

Table of Contents:
Preface List of Abbreviations Introduction PART ONE: THE HONG KONG BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT Hong Kong: The Business Environment in the New Special Administrative Region; E.V.Roberts & D.Petersen Changing Government-Business Relations and the Governance of Hong Kong; T.Ngo Hong Kong, China and the Handling of the Financial Crisis; P.Ferdinand Like Fish Finding Water: Economic Relations between Hong Kong and China; R.Ash Hong Kong and its Intermediate Role in Cross-Strait Economic Relations; T.Lin PART TWO: GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS Hong Kong under Chinese Sovereignty; A Preliminary Assessment; B.Hook Beijing's Fifth Column and the Transfer of Power in Hong Kong, 1983-1997; Y.Qian Power as Non-Zero Sum? Central-Local Relations between the Hong Kong SAR and Beijing; L.C.Li The Hong Kong Public Service in Transition: Sustaining Administrative Capacity and Administrative Neutrality; I.Scott Constitutional Dilemmas in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; P.Wesley-Smith Towards a Democratic Audit in Hong Kong: Some Issues and Problems; R.Porter PART THREE: SOCIAL DISCOURSE Reflections on the Hong Kong Discourse on Human Rights; S.Weigelin-Schwiedrzik Church-State Relations in the Transition: An Historical Perspective; B.Leung Migration and Identities in Hong Kong's Transition; J.Salaff PART FOUR: EXTERNAL RELATIONS: The External Relations of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; M.S.Neves Index

About the Author :
ROBERT ASH is Chiang Ching-kuo Professor of Taiwan Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, where he has taught in the Department of Economics since 1975. He has published widely on economic issues affecting China and Greater China. Recent books include Economic Trends in Chinese Agriculture and The Chinese Economy under Deng Xiaoping (both co-edited with Y.Y. Kueh). PETER FERDINAND is Director of the Centre for Studies in Democratisation at the University of Warwick. Among his publications are Communist Regimes in Comparative Perspective, The New Central Asia and its Neighbours and Take-off for Taiwan? . BRIAN HOOK is Emeritus Leverhulme Fellow, Visiting Professor at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hull, and Honorary Research Fellow in the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong. He was formerly the editor of the China Quarterly at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and has published widely on China and Hong Kong. ROBIN PORTER is Director of the China Business and Policy Unit at Keele University. His publications include Reporting the News from China, Industrial Reformers in Republican China, The China Business Guide (with M. Robinson), and Management Issues in China (co-edited with D. Brown).