Governing Hong Kong

Administrative Officers from the 19th Century to the Handover to China, 1862-1997

Steve Tsang author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Published:24th Oct '07

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Governing Hong Kong cover

Hong Kong is at the heart of modern China's position as a regional - and potential world - superpower. This history of the region argues that its prosperity is a direct by-product of the British administrators who ran the place as a colony before the handover in 1997.

Hong Kong is at the heart of modern China's position as a regional - and potential world - superpower. In this important and original history of the region, Steve Tsang argues that its current prosperity is a direct by-product of the British administrators who ran the place as a colony before the handover in 1997.The British administration of Hong Kong uniquely derived its practices from the best traditions of Imperial Chinese government and its philosophical, Confucian basis. It stressed efficiency, honesty, fairness, benevolent paternalism and individual freedom. The result was a hugely successful colony, especially in industry and finance, and it remains so today with its new status of Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China.Under British imperial administration, Hong Kong grew from a collection of fishing villages to an international entrepot, an industrial power and an international financial centre. British and Chinese interests dovetailed and the Chinese population was satisfied by the welfare reform and economic advancement perpetuated by Britain's administrative officers. Demand for constitutional reform and a sense of Hong Kong Chinese identity grew only as the handover to China approached.This definitive history of the colourful individuals who administered the colony on behalf of the British government sheds light on two empires inextricably linked in nature and on the philosophy of government.

'An indispensable work for reference as well as for inspired historical interpretation.' Wm. Roger Louis, Kerr Professor at the University of Texas at Austin 'Governing Hong Kong is an investigation into the central importance of Administrative Officers (called Cadets until 1959) in the Hong Kong civil service and into the difference they made to the quality of governance. Based on archival research, extensive interviewing, surveys and a comprehensive bibliography, this unique, scholarly and well-presented book is a major contribution to knowledge in several inter-related fields.' - Brian Hook, former Editor of the China Quarterly and Visiting Professor of China Studies, Middlesex University Business School 'Meticulously researched and convincingly argued, Governing Hong Kong is an example of original, detailed yet stimulating historical scholarship at its best' Anthony Kirk-Greene, Emeritus Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford

ISBN: 9781845115258

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

240 pages