Socioeconomic Center, Political Periphery: Hong Kong’s Uncertain Transition Toward the Twenty-first Century

The 1990s will prove to be a turning point in Chinese history. The Hong Kong-Guangdong integration process will have significance not just to Hong Kong and Guangdong, but also to other parts of China, to Taiwan, and even to Korea. Hong Kong, forced by the dwindling China market, turned to export-led industrialization and became one of the four “little dragons.” The economy of Guangdong grew only slowly, under a new reign of socialist centralism and self-sufficiency. In the political sphere, the integration process is between Hong Kong and Beijing, between Hong Kong and Guangdong. In 1997, the sovereignty of Hong Kong will be resumed by the Beijing government of mainland China, by the provincial Guangdong government. The imbalanced integration helps to explain not just the disagreement between the economists and the political scientists in this volume, but also Hong Kong’s uncertain transition toward the twenty-first century. It is possible that Hong Kong will go through one of three scenarios.