Chinese parallel title on jacket romanized as: Hsiang-kang ti cheng chih pien hua chi cheng fu ho fa hsing chih wei chi. Bibliography: p. 449-467.

Hong Kong has undergone sweeping transformation since its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. This is a multidisciplinary assessment of the new regime and key issues, challenges, crises and opportunities confronting the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

13. Walking a Tight Rope: Hong Kong's Media Facing Political and Economic Challenges Since Sovereignty Transfer -- 14. Postcolonial Cultural Trends in Hong Kong: Imagining the Local, the National, and the Global -- 15. Conclusion: Crisis and Transformation in the Hong Kong SAR-Toward Soft Authoritarian Developmentalism? -- The Editors and Contributors -- Index

This book examines the government of Hong Kong since its handover to China in 1997, arguing that Hong Kong has been poorly governed and that this is what lies behind regular mass protests since 2003. It considers the different aspects of these government problems, and assesses prospects for the future.

Governing Hong Kong - Legitimacy, Communication & Political Decay

A respected Chinese political philosopher calls for the Communist Party to take the lead in moving China along the path to democracy before it is too late. With Xi Jinping potentially set as president for life, China’s move toward political democracy may appear stalled. But Jiwei Ci argues that four decades of reform have created a mentality in the Chinese people that is just waiting for the political system to catch up, resulting in a disjunction between popular expectations and political realities. The inherent tensions in a largely democratic society without a democratic political system will trigger an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy, forcing the Communist Party to act or die. Two crises loom for the government. First is the waning of the Communist Party’s revolutionary legacy, which the party itself sees as a grave threat. Second is the fragility of the next leadership transition. No amount of economic success will compensate for the party’s legitimacy deficit when the time comes. The only effective response, Ci argues, will be an orderly transition to democracy. To that end, the Chinese government needs to start priming its citizens for democracy, preparing them for new civil rights and civic responsibilities. Embracing this pragmatic role offers the Communist Party a chance to survive. Its leaders therefore have good reason to initiate democratic change. Sure to challenge the Communist Party and stir debate, Democracy in China brings an original and important voice to an issue with far-reaching consequences for China and the world.

The British rule in Hong Kong ended in 1997 and it is now both timely and intellectually inspiring to look back at the last twenty-five years of the British rule, when Hong Kong was transformed from a low-cost manufacturing base into one of Asia's most vibrant international service centers. The underlying social and political tensions of the society during this period of change constitute the focus of this present monograph, which is a collection of articles written by well known scholars and academics in Hong Kong. What have been the moral values and motivating forces of the Chinese population during this period of economic growth? How was the population organized and how were political parties formed to air their old grievances and newly found legitimate claims? How did the Hong Kong British government cope with such social forces and conflicts both in the urban areas and among the rural communities? What have been the identities and allegiances of the local populace in view of the Chinese recovery of the city? The authors, who witnessed these events and some even participated in the process, try to answer these and many other questions with convincing eloquence and insights with the help of decade-long surveys and statistical analyses.