ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a conceptual framework explicating China’s expanding influences from its inland to East Asia. Media professionalism in Hong Kong is highly indicative of this mixture of China’s authoritarian power and local institutional openness. China’s engagement with Hong Kong media could be traced to the transition period of the city when the Sino-British Declaration was concluded in early 1980s. Hong Kong media had been characterizing a pattern of power-dependence before the handover in 1997. China therefore primarily took a ‘soft approach’ by exercising its indirect influence on Hong Kong media, which aimed to lure the non-partisan press organizations to establish political understanding of and socioeconomic connection with China. Co-optation to media owners and senior managers of the Hong Kong press aimed at increasing China’s influence in the ownership structure of Hong Kong media paved the way for media self-censorship, which refers to the fear of offending powerful stakeholders in news reporting.
