ABSTRACT
From 1982 to 1984, Hong Kong allowed its future to become entwined with the passions of Chinese nationalism, with the emotional goal of "unification of the motherland". Hong Kong is a Chinese city-state that has found it profitable and expedient to sail under a flag of convenience, rather like an American or Japanese or a Hong Kong ship’s being registered in Liberia or Panama. Both Hong Kong and Taiwan were built by Chinese exiles and emigrants from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The PRC’s reasons for tolerating separate enclaves on its southern borders have been primarily economic. During the thirty-one years between 1950 and 1980, mainland China’s overall foreign trade balance was in deficit only twelve years. But if trade with Hong Kong is excluded from the calculation, the PRC would have recorded substantial deficits for twenty-four of the thirty-one years.
