The End of British Rule in Hong Kong

Deng Xiaoping, now the paramount dra offstage card of china, is about 90 days old and visibly in declining health. A struggle for the succession is nearly certain to get going out upon his demise, a struggle that testament pit supporters of act reform against Communist Party hard-liners ("China's dissidents," 1995, p. 32). The succession struggle is liable(p) to be intensified by the highly unequal discrepancy of wealth and economical growth of contemporary China. A "neo-authoritarian" wing of the Communist Party may well seize on discontent in the poorer inland provinces to impose stricter economic controls on the rapidly developing coastal regions of China (Tempest, 1995, p. A8).

After 1997, Hong Kong will effectively be another Chinese coastal urban center and likely to sh atomic number 18 the fate of the coastal provinces. It may attain a prosperous future as a contemporaneous equivalent of a 19th century Treaty Port, a Chinese window on the outer world. Alternatively, its prosperity may evaporate as China falls into turmoil or reverts into rigid economic as well as governanceal authoritarianism. In the latter case, a flood of refugees may render escape from Hong Kong, many of whom will be nearly whimsical among refugees in that they will be millionaires. Indeed, many Hong Kong residents take already anticipated the worst by purchasing houses abroad, notably in western Canada and in other countries much(prenominal) as Belize, solely also in West Coast cities in the join Sta

The questions surrounding the future of Hong Kong sick important light on the fundamental relationship betwixt political liberalization and economic development. Although supporters of China's dissident movement are highly visible in Hong Kong, it is unlikely that most Hong Kong residents and occupation people are deeply concerned over abstractions such as freedom of expression. But what does closely engage purge the most apolitical of business people is the question of perceptual constancy and the rule of law. Authoritarianism means arbitrary government, and arbitrary government in turn means uncertainty for those who may be subjected to its actions. The great requirement for economic development is stability and predictability in government.

These unglamorous and unidealistic characteristics, rather than the ideal of democracy, perhaps primarily mark for the relationship between political and economic liberalization.

In the 1980s, when the arrested development treaty was negotiated, the Chinese leadership had a more dictatorial motivation. The chief concern of the Deng government was with China's economic development. To demand substance imposition of the Chinese system on Hong Kong in 1997 would have been to kill a goose that was laying golden eggs. The Chinese were willing to accept a further 50 years of limitation on their authority in Hong Kong in locate to preserve intact its new role as an economic locomotive for the neighboring Chinese provinces.

Holberton, S. (1994, July). Cooling-off period. World Press Review, 41, p. 17.

China's dissidents: non as one. (1995, June 3). Economist, 334, pp. 32-33.

As suggested earlier, uncertainty over the future of Hong Kong is bounce up closely with uncertainty over the future of China itself and specifically with the succession crisis that is expected to follow the death of Deng Xaiopeng. The death of a paramount leader is always a meter of crisis in authoritarian systems; leaders may attempt to take into account for the succession,
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