Further democratic reversal in the post-handover period (mid-1997–2002)

With the unfolding of the third and fourth wave of global democratization, the total number of electoral democracies has jumped from 39 from 1974 to 120 in 2000 (Lipset et al., 2000) globally. Even in mid-2002, however, Hong Kong has not successfully finished its democratic transition. Chapter 7 reveals the new master of the post-handover Hong Kong was determined to change the limited democracy of Hong Kong by 1997 back to a more authoritarian one. Though democratization in Hong Kong has progressed slowly since the mid-1980s, it was drastically reversed within a few months after the handover of the territory from Britain to China.