ABSTRACT

A major issue in the colonization of the New Territories of Hong Kong was that of changes in land rights. This chapter focuses on one particular dimension of the traditional Chinese land transactions: the tension between the notion of zhunzhe or zhaizhe. It sets such long-term land transactions in historical context, and explores how this tension played out in the New Territories. The retention of certain rights over alienated property worked in such a way as to mitigate the confrontational dimension of land transactions, which served as a means for local competition. In the first instance, these institutions served as obstacles to social change through transactions of land and credit. To that end, these transactions only had a limited level of impersonality. Without a higher level of impersonality, it would have been impossible for an open market on land rights to function, thus making it more difficult for a system of collateral security to operate.