ABSTRACT
This chapter aims at a brief delineation and preliminary assessment of some of the basic features and specific issues for both positive collaboration and stressful confrontation in the dynamic and organic linkages between Hong Kong as a British colony and Guangdong as the vanguard province in south China. Geographically, Hong Kong is part of China and, economically, it was part of China with Guangdong Province as its immediate hinterland. While administratively a British colony since 1842, Hong Kong has been populated overwhelmingly by Chinese, with the great majority coming from the Pearl River Delta. The sense of community and belonging between the people of Hong Kong and Guangdong has been so strong and pervasive in human, cultural, social, and economic terms that an old saying, “the province and Hong Kong as one family”, is a very apt characterization of their many overlapping ties and multiple linkages despite their divergent developmental paths and different political jurisdictions.
