The Historical Relationship Between Hong Kong and Mainland China Especially after the 1997 Handover - Case Study Example

The Historical Relationship between Hong Kong and Mainland China Especially After the 1997 Handover Introduction In the world civilization, China is the oldest having records dating to 3,500 years back. Prior to the 20th century, China had successive dozens of dynasties. Due to the waning of the Qing Dynasty China’s prosperity started to diminish leading to a sustained stagnation in the economic and social aspects of life. China’s monarchy system came to a halt in October 1911 due to a military evolution.However, internal conflicts were a mainstay. Later on, in 1949, the PRC (People’s Republican of China) overthrew the nationalist Kuomintang (Coleman 1). Hong Kong encompasses of the Kowloon Peninsula, Hong Kong Island, and the New Territories. Hong Kong has 6.9 million people with 95% being ethnic Chinese. The city is among the densely populated regions having approximately 6,100 persons per kilometer square. The official languages in the city are mainly English, Chinese, and Cantonese that is a Chinese dialect spoken by many individuals in Hong Kong.Further, after Hong Kong became a part of China in 1997, the Mandarin Chinese usage is seen to rise. Moreover, Confucian influence and religion are common practices in the region. The average life expectancy is approximately 81.39 years, that is, 84.3 years for women and 78.72 for men.In addition, the infant mortality rate is 2.97 deaths per 1,000 live births (China Review 96). Creation of a barrier between Hong Kong and Mainland China Development and the cross-border co-operation is a substantial phenomenon in a globalizing world. The barrier between Mainland China and Hong Kong remains the most outstanding case of the transnational developments across the universe. Hong Kong became a renowned city by 1997 having a GDP that was higher than many of the developed economies. Hong Kong’s success is dependent on numerous complementary factors. Indeed, an exceptional social and economic system evolved in the Hong Kong city. The system had an emphasis on a clean and efficient government, rule of law, and a competition that is reliant on the principle of free-market. Additionally, opening up the China mainland spurred the economic growth that is observed in Hong Kong today (Shen 1). The Chinese inhabitants nervously watched United Kingdom and China launch negotiation relating to the British colony political future. The opponents of the idea regarding “one country, two systems,” worry that the concept of the socialist economy might undermine the aspect of dynamism within the realm of the capitalist economy of Hong Kong. Assertions by Lui (35) entail that there existed a bit of inevitable integration in the regional or national domains after Hong Kong became a formal part of China. In cognizant of this, the cultural, socio-economic, and political implications of the national and regional integration were out of focus. In light of neglecting this concern, there arose a novel social agenda in the shift of the Hong Kong-Mainland relationship. Basically, the integration of mainland China and Hong Kong posed a series of challenges, which included, emerging rigidities, conflicts among mainlanders and the locals, and the population flows. It is vital to note that, the cultural and geographic proximity enables businesspersons to avoid formal trade and investment barriers. For instance, tariffs are easily avoided via smuggling that is evident between Mainland China and Hong Kong. The movement of populations across the trans-borders from Taiwan and Hong Kong to the mainland China is somewhat free. Further, movements from the mainland China to the other regions are highly discouraged and controlled. The circumstance makes it hard for the businesses to enjoy a free market economy. However, illegitimate migrants are common between mainland China and Hong Kong. Eminent evidence shows that, the Chinese Yuan is inconvertible while the Hong Kong currency if freely allowed in circulation among the business persons in SEZ (Shenzhen Special Economic Zone) (Faure & Lee, 340). The China factor and its peg to the US dollar facilitated to the prosperity of the decades surrounding the 1980 and 1980s due to the creation of efficient zones of the economy. The economic opening and restructuring of the economies of the city of Hong Kong and Mainland China offered a golden opportunity for Hong Kong to expand its internalities. Essentially, the low wages that are seen in China most accurately in Shenzhen facilitated the relocation of industries from Hong Kong to China (Faure & Lee, 333). Further, a galloping speed that overwhelmed the relocation of the industries accelerated in the 1990s. Suggestively, a conservative approximation in Guangdong showed that manufacturers from Hong Kong operated 25,000 industries and had employed 3million laborers in 1993. A second estimation in 1996 evidenced that the number of laborers of the Hong Kong producers in Guangdong outweighed that of Hong Kong proper. Thus, the relocation of the industries aided Hong Kong to sustain its competitiveness for a short while minus focusing on technological upgrades (Lui 35). The major barrier in relation to the economic integration observed between Mainland China and Hong Kong is that of a command economy. It is essentially hard for a command economy to draw benefits from cross-border investment and international businesses due to the system of the economy that creates an insulation between the world markets.It is evidently common that a command economy assumes an inconvertible and overvalued currency. The situation makes it very hard for the economic integration to occur across the national borders. Moreover, the planners that plan and value the goods and services are seemingly hindered from determining the trends because of the arbitrary and distorted price systems. It is eminently difficult for the planners to conclude on the types of goods to be imported into the country due to the existence of an inefficient command economy. For instance, the East-West transactions are majorly featured as asymmetric integration. They integration is termed asymmetric because it includes relations of two different economies that exhibit totally different functional features. It is noted that, partial marketization of the economy in China is the major factor for the enhancement of the economic integration between the Mainland and Hong Kong economies. Contextually, the international economic integration will remain inevitably restricted until complete marketization of the economic system in China (Faure & Lee, 340). Differences in the Relationship between Hong Kong and China During the post-colonial era, Beijing wished for a stable and more peaceful transition to occur in Hong Kong due to the sovereignty issues of Macao and Taiwan that remained unresolved. Since the return in 1999, the Hong Kong’s post-handover activities are featured by intense cross-border limelight because the Beijing relations are the most undisputed reasons for the controversial attitude seen in China directed to the territorial sovereignty. According to Beijing, Hong Kong has the potential to build China’s international image particularly due to the Tiananmen occurrence of 1989 intertwined with the collapse of the 1990s cold war. After the failure of the cold war that was ideologically-driven by Beijing, Beijing committed herself to rejoin international community. However, this case depended heavily on Hong Kong’s post-handover fate (Wang and Yongnian 85). Surrendering to the British, Hong Kong developed an exclusively different trajectory from that observed in mainland China. Arguably, the Communist regime established coupled with the start of cold war accentuated the observed differences. In comparison with mainland China’s centrally planned economy that was prior to the open door policy of Deng Xiaoping, Hong Kong ran a capitalist economy. Notably as evidenced, the economic achievements of a capitalist economy in Hong Kong are phenomenal, for instance, in 1997 its GDP was US$27,211. The observed GDP was 35 times higher than that of China, which was rated as meager US$775. In this regard, there is a predominant middle class in Hong Kong that is quite different from China mainland. In addition, due to being a British colony, the Hong Kongers’ generations underwent an entirely different system of social upbringing from ideological to educational indoctrination. The Hong Kongers identified themselves to be culturally and ethnically Chinese, but by far, they were unwilling to comprehend the idea of being Chinese in the political context. The situation worsened due to the Chine-ness definition in terms of the institutions and the state on China mainland. In spite of close the proximity of Hong Kong to mainland China, Hong Kong has always persistently laid a struggle to resist a political influence in regard to mainland China (Wang and Yongnian 86). Important Events That Made the Hong Kongese the Way They Are Due to the acceleration of democratization in the British government in 1990s, there was a wide gap in the differences between Hong Kong and mainland China. The situations contributed little efforts to mollify the mutual apprehensions and build a political identity that was common among the inhabitants of mainland China and Hong Kong. In light of these gaps, the 1997 retrocessions exercise was certainly challenging. The brilliant “one country, two systems” promise by Deng although temporal was a response that attempted to address the main differences observed between mainland China and Hong Kong. As a result, there was resolution differences as Hong Kong kept its capitalist character.Notably buttressed by the provisions outlined in the basic law concerning the individual property rights, guarantee of freedom, and maintenance of Hong Kong’s previous common law. In addition to the desire by Beijing to build an international creditability of the “one country, one system,” the arrangements are seen to defy the early skepticism from being preserved with regard to the aftermath of the handover. While China’s negotiators seemed determined and uncompromised against the British counterparts amid the negotiating phase, Beijing eased its stresses on Hong Kong instantaneously after the handover (Wang and Yongnian 86). During the post-war period, the colonial regime of the Hong Kong embraced social and economic non-interventionist policies. Together with these policies, the cultural and social severance of Hong Kong from the PRC socialist government facilitated a hybrid unique culture. The culture manifested itself in the form of religion and language. The Southern Chinese exhibited a standard dialect of Cantonese and the language of the colonial power, which is English. These languages are the most dominant in the city, and the people have the capability of absorbing and incorporating terms used in other languages (Lai 12). Why Many People Call Themselves Hong Kongese Rather Than Chinese During the time of late transition, the majority of the Hong Kong people decided call themselves Hong Kongese rather than Chinese or British (Lai,13). The image of the people of Hong Kong in regard to China deteriorated after the incident of 4th June.Further, it did not improve even with the increased mutual investments observed in Hong Kong and China during the 1990s. Due to compromises in the promises made in regard to the social and economic systems of Hong Kong, many people were in support of retaining their territory after the 1997 handover as a British colony. The identity of the local Hong Kong gained much strength due to a massive immigration of the new Chinese in the early decades. These immigrants moved to Hong Kong because of the economic and political reasons. Despite the fact that the Hong Kong people were Chinese descendants, they gained awareness about the different style of life that existed in the mainland China and hence segregated themselves from the new immigrants.Essentially, conflicts and tensions amid the newcomers and the locals solidified into social practices of consolidation and identity formation. Moreover, identification of the new immigrants took the center stage and marked as a distinctive social category upon which negative images curdled. The observed socio-cultural difference between the mainland Chinese and the Hong Kong inhabitants benchmarked the extraneous distinction (Kit-wai 28). Different views of the 1997 handover The Hong Kong liberal pessimists emphasize on the economistic, and the political values on the material need. They hold that if people are be asked to choose between well-being and rights, they will choose both. The situation is considered because, in mainland China, there is a reform boom that is meant to diversify the people’s employment and create a high per capita income in the country. The mainland China is a post-revolutionary state in the time the Hong Kong city joins her. The postulates hold that China might become a post-Leninist or in other words a corporatist state. Further, they elucidate that the People’s Republic of China will never turn to embrace a procedural democracy overnight but rather the leaders have recommended national elections.Much reason stands in place for pessimism or demonstrations that are dissident, which might occur after the transition of mid-1997. They also assert that in the short-term, there might be a spate of administration in Beijing. Further, Hu Yaobang will have died, and ZaoZiyang retired but the Chinese Communists and the wider mainland and the power networks will still hold (Chan, 3). The people from mainland China chose to immigrate to Hong Kong because of the scrambled economic, social, and the political dimensions. In a nutshell, the sovereignty of Hong Kong is pivotal to the politics of mainland China in the face of national reunification. In the bid to enhance continued reunification, China must emphasize on the actualization and resumption of Hong Kong as sovereign and maintain its territorial integrity. Ideally, the setting of Hong Kong SAR is showcasing a real-life experiment in the positive effects that relate to the “one country, two systems.” In this respect, the Hong Kong’s reintegration under the People’s Republic of China has failed in the promotion relating to the Taiwan desired effects (Chan 3). Hong Kong’s future is inextricably allied to mainland China, that is, Hong Kong is need of China, and this is not changing soon. It is open implicated that the “one country, two systems” idea of mainland China is not different. However, there is no offer to field one’s constitutionally elected representatives. Rather, there is an opportunity to vet, vote and freely elect candidates. It is evident that nearly or very few politicians serve the interest of the people that elected them, it converges with almost all nations that politicians serve their interests other than those of the people that elected them. Therefore, it follows that Hong Kong is not in need of democracy, neither it had, thus what it needs is a just and fair system of administration. Candidly, the opponents of the China government are not going easily to back down. According to them, the situation is valid since there are almost 1.5 million people on board to take care of in Beijing as opposed to the nearly 7.2 million in Hong Kong. The people of Beijing though need to understand the reasons why the silent majority are getting into the streets. Moreover, Beijing needs to address the unfairness system that is running amok from the time of the handover 17 years ago.The situation saddens the mainland Chinese inhabitants and hope that if possible the Hong Kong city should remain to be part of the larger China. Conclusively, Beijing needs to look at and fix the broken system of administration. The people of Hong Kong are also required to be patient for the fixation of these broken systems. If this is not done soonest, then the people are going to take into the streets causing havoc and instability. Therefore, it is paramount for the governments and the governance of the masses to take the foci. Works Cited Chan, Ming K. The challenge of Hong Kongs reintegration with China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1997. Print. China Review. Political Review. 2012. Print. Coleman, D. Y. China 2014 Country Review, Country Watch. Houston, Texas. p.1. 2014. Print. Faure, D. & Lee. Economy.Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. p.340.2004. Print. Kit-wai, Ma, E. Culture, Politics and Television in Hong Kong. Deakin University, Australia. 2005. Print. Lai, Amy T. Asian English writers of Chinese origin: Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2009. Print. Lui, T. Fading Opportunities: Hong Kong in the context of regional integration. China perspectives, 2014(1)..2014. Print. Shen, J. Cross-border connection between Hong Kong and mainland China under “two systems” before and beyond 1997.Googr. Ann., 85B (1). p. 1. 2003. Print Wang, Gungwu, and Yongnian Zheng. China and the new international order. London: Routledge, 2008. Print. Read More