The Hong Kong-Guangdong Link

Partnership in Flux

Reginald Yin-Wang Kwok, Alvin Y. So

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781315481630
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Asuntos públicos y administración

This text focuses on the relationship of Hong Kong with the adjacent Chinese province Guangdong, the territories most directly involved in the 1997 transfer of Hong Kong to Chinese rule. The socio-economic, political and cultural impact of this crucial link and the implications for the future of both Hong Kong and China are studied. A multi-disciplinary approach is taken to examine the complexity of economic, political and cultural transformation of the Hong Kong-Guangdong link and this book presents a historical perspective to trace the long-term structural transformation. The dynamics of the integration process between the two territories is also explored.

1
A Framework for Exploring the Hong Kong-Guangdong Link

Reginald Yin-Wang Kwok and Roger T. Ames

On July 1, 1997, Hong Kong will formally be returned to the People’s Republic of China (China). The territories most directly involved in this transfer are Hong Kong and the adjacent Chinese province of Guangdong. These two territories have had a continuous, though at times interrupted, cultural and economic relationship since Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842. Following China’s adoption of the Open-door Policy in 1978 as part of its Economic Reform, the links joining Hong Kong and Guangdong have intensified and flourished.

Before examining the various dimensions of this ongoing integration process, we shall first review recent interactions between Hong Kong and Guangdong since Economic Reform, in particular the effects of direct Hong Kong investment. In the years following 1978, Beijing gradually opened its door to international production and business, with Guangdong designated as the province for such experimentation (Xu, 1991). The Chinese Open-door Policy came at a time when Hong Kong’s export production had reached a point where Hong Kong was seeking to expand its production to offshore territories. China in general, and Guangdong in particular, provided the production advantages that had been steadily eroding in the de facto city state. Moreover, China offered the geographic advantages of proximity and convenient transportation, as well as the cultural advantages of a common language and family ties. Hong Kong seized the opportunity, becoming the first and largest investor in China.

Since then, Hong Kong has progressed from an export manufacturing base to a postindustrial information economy. Moreover, as a thriving international metropolis, it has regained its original function of entrepôt lost after 1950, and now serves as the trade middleman between China and the outside world. More important, it has quickly grown into a financial and investment center comprised of transnational firms whose investments are directed outward to other territories—over three-quarters of Hong Kong’s offshore investment is in China, with the remaining amount committed primarily to Southeast Asia (Hongkong Bank, 11–1990). Hong Kong has thus been able to establish itself as a world city with a complex of transnational connections in the Asia-Pacific region (Taylor and Kwok, 1989).

In the process of Hong Kong’s emergence as a world city, its economy has become progressively tied to that of China through its Guangdong connection, and vice versa (Kwok, R., 1986). Trade with China has grown spectacularly. During the seventeen-year period since the Open-door Policy came into effect, imports from China have grown by more than eighteen times to constitute over one-third of Hong Kong’s total imports in 1989. Exports to China have grown by over 540 times, amounting to more than 19 percent of Hong Kong’s total exports in 1989 (Kwok, R., 1992a). Hong Kong has been the source of two-thirds of the total foreign investment in China, contributing greatly to its foreign-exchange income and providing expertise in management, marketing, information, and advisory services for China (Hongkong Bank, 6–7–1989). China and Hong Kong, despite their different economic and institutional systems, have become close economic partners.

This collaborative production has accelerated both Hong Kong’s postindustrial development and Guangdong’s industrial takeoff. In the future, their respective production roles are generally expected to continue basically unchanged. International commerce, finance, transportation, and services remain Hong Kong’s primary functions, while Guangdong is expected to initiate a program of technological enhancement, labor training, and product upgrading within its industrial development (Tong and Wu, 1992). This strategy is a natural extension of the present trend, but it seeks to do more than merely preserve the status quo.

Hong Kong-Guangdong integration is a crucial turning point in Chinese history and has profound meaning for its socialist transformation to a mixed economy. The process of integration is having a major impact on the future institutional forms of both territories, as their governments, societies, and political groups maneuver for positions of influence on the outcome of the 1997 unification project. The 1997 issue has appeared frequently in newspaper headlines and has been reported on in international, national, and local mass media. It has already occasioned comprehensive economic and cultural transformations in both Guangdong and Hong Kong, leading to massive changes in industrial infrastructure, population concentrations, structure of management, and land use. There have also been significant changes in personal values and world views, ethics and etiquette, institutional behavior and ideology. Within households and organizations, conflicts have emerged among the generations. As a result, individuals, families (both nuclear and extended), neighborhoods, communities, enterprises, and governments have all been forced to respond by adjusting their internal and external relationships, their modes of expression, and their decision-making procedures. Historically, practically all accepted norms and dictums have been openly challenged (Kwok and So, 1991).

The principal purpose of this introductory chapter is to suggest a method for investigating the Hong Kong and Guangdong connection, with the intention of applying this method to appraise the present course of development and forecast a possible future outcome. There are three levels of discussion in this chapter. First, we propose an analytic framework that might be useful for reviewing and interpreting the economic, social, political, and cultural dimensions in the Hong Kong-Guangdong link. Second, we examine, in general, the present relationship between Hong Kong-Guangdong and the global community through patterns of population migration. Third, related to the framework of analysis and the relationship between the region and the world beyond, we present four research issues addressed by scholars in the humanities and social sciences who have been studying various aspects of this integration process, and here offer their assessments of the territory’s future.

Although the integration process is having greatest impact on Hong Kong and Guangdong, there are altogether five players who continue to influence and be influenced by this process. Apart froin the two contiguous areas—Hong Kong and Guangdong—Britain (London) and China (Beijing) have also participated in the negotiating process. Less obvious and more remote is the fifth population affected—the migrants from Hong Kong who have established residence in Canada, Australia, Britain, the United States, and parts of southeast Asia, adding greatly to the numbers of overseas Chinese (Huaqiao).

There are many perspectives in this complex and conflicting interaction. In a broad sense, the integration is a process of societal changes within the context of large-scale development. We would suggest that the societal evolution in the Hong Kong-Guangdong region is essentially subject to three major forces: political and cultural forces, institutional structure, and development. The fast-paced transformation in this south China region can be construed as a contention among different political and cultural forces. There is a historical dynamic between national unity and diversity, and a continuing philosophical dialectic between the center and the periphery—Beijing vs. the Hong Kong-Guangdong region. Institutionally, integration is the blending of socialism and capitalism, the determination of a territorial organization for managing the process of change, and the delineation of the level and limit of the fusion—Beijing vs. Hong Kong. Developmentally, the process of integration maneuvers between economic growth and political control—Hong Kong-Guangdong and Beijing. These three interdisciplinary perspectives are by no means mutually exclusive; they frequently overlap and interact with each other. To study and understand the interaction toward territorial integration, it is necessary to construct an analytical framework that incorporates these three perspectives. Of the players, Hong Kong, Guangdong, and Beijing are the chief constituents and hence are the bases of the analytic grid.

Before we can discuss Hong Kong’s possible transnational future, we must first examine the symbiotic relationship between Hong Kong and Guangdong, their economic restructuring since Economic Reform, and their domestic and international connections. One of the most noted trends is the continuous in-migration from other parts of China to Guangdong, and the out-migration of Hong Kong’s population. This floating-population phenomenon may well cause social and political imbalance in the province. The “brain drain,” it is argued, will deplete the crucial economic resource—skilled labor and tested entrepreneurial talent. The loss of Hong Kong’s most productive labor is expected to decrease productive capability and impair economic growth. Hence, the human exodus is seen as detrimental to the region’s future (for further discussion on Hong Kong population movement, see the recent publication of Skeldon, 1994).

Projections of the Hong Kong-Guangdong future are often contradictory and always controversial. Beijing sees the process as a positive development, ideologically controllable and economically beneficial. Hong Kong will continue to be Beijing’s window on Western technology and its bridge to the capitalist world. The Western press is far more reserved. A perusal of the Asian Wall Street Journal or the Far Eastern Economic Review since 1984 should give the reader sufficient pause about the assumed efficacy of Chinese-style management in the future economic, political, and social development of Hong Kong. This same debate rages within academic circles with equal heat and diversity of opinion. The Hong Kong-Guangdong connection is fluid and changeable, and its possible future is the theme that occupies all of the authors in this anthology.

A Framework with Three Perspectives

Let us elaborate briefly the theoretical framework of the three perspectives outlined above. From these vantage points, we will attempt to analyze broadly events in Hong Kong, Guangdong, and Beijing—the most immediate players.

The Political and Cultural Forces

Looking at the process of integration from the political-cultural perspective, periods of national unity and disintegration have never been conceived of as contradictory or mutually exclusive events. Rather, they are complementary aspects of the dynastic cycle, reflecting as they do the two sides of the political dynamics of the state. The sequential alternation between unity and disunity within the Chinese state is its normal process of development (Kwok, D., 1991). In the Hong Kong/China relationship, the British colonization of Hong Kong has been perceived by Beijing as a dynastic incident. In historical terms, Hong Kong’s return to China is not only legally justifiable by appeal to international law; it is inevitable. The separation of Hong Kong from China has been nothing more than a temporary arrangement, and its reintegration is the natural course of things.

Unity runs deep in Chinese historical consciousness. Expressed through cultural mediums such as novels, poetry, operas, and the dynastic histories themselves, this historical consciousness informs us of the Chinese commitment to political unity and cultural continuity. Chinese culture simply does not question either the desirability or the inevitability of eventual reunion. The cultural ideal of a unified China tends to produce a prescriptive and didactic scholarship that at times pays greater attention to how things should be than to how things really are. Whatever the final shape of the Hong Kong-Guangdong integration in 1997, there may be some lessons to be learned about the distance between the ideal and the reality in the Chinese experience of dynastic unification and division (Kwok, D., 1991).

Anticipating 1997, Beijing has proclaimed the “One Country, Two Systems” (yiguo liangzhi) policy (Zhou and Shi, 1988: 60–61), providing the institutional instrument under which unification will take place. Hong Kong will retain its free market system, whereas Beijing will continue with its own brand of socialist development. This will ensure Hong Kong’s continuous economic role in China’s transformation as the “window” to the outside world and instigator of China’s growth through its uninterrupted supply of investment. Neither entity will interfere with nor impose itself upon the other (Huaqiao ribao, 12–24–1991). Implied in this policy is the acceptance of diversity within unity. In reality, diversity in China has always existed through the preservation of regional culture traditions, ethnicity, dialects, and localized growth.

Since the Economic Reform of 1978, economic diversity has become increasingly apparent among the coastal, central, and interior regions of China. Even more pronounced is the difference between the economic system prevailing in the south, particularly in Guangdong, and that of the north (Far Eastern Economic Review, 4–4–1991: 21–24). The south is more open to the free market system and overseas trade and has adopted many free market practices, especially in its enterprise structure, trade, and production. The north, on the other hand, retains much more of the orthodox state socialist practice. Beijing has generally accepted and tolerated economic regionalism, but often has been disturbed by the prospect that such diversification may lead to chaotic political conditions. Political opinions vacillate between encouragement and suspicion, although official policy has not closed down such experiments. Whenever the state feels that diversity may threaten its legitimacy, it reacts swiftly and with decision to reinforce uniformity and centralization. The Tiananmen Incident in 1989 is a recent reminder of such tactics. The uncertainty of the Hong Kong-Guangdong role in the Chinese Economic Reform is simply a reflection of the unpredictability of the dynamics of state politics.

Unity with diversity is a critical historical issue. In Beijing and Hong Kong, there are both believers and doubters with respect to the outcome and possible benefits of the 1997 integration. The present popular posture is one of “wait and see” without any firm commitment: Let the unfolding of events confirm or refute the historical phenomenon, and meanwhile put the Hong Kong-Guangdong future on hold.

Philosophically, the dynastic Chinese state has been structured as a hierarchical spire with power emitting from the center and with tribute drawn in from the periphery. This cultural model is not a concept but a practical guide for political distribution. Yu Ying-shih uses the “five zones” (wufu) of submission as a device for describing the dynamics of the Han world order, tracing the concentric circles from the court at the center to the “wild zone” at the frontier (Yu, 1986: 379–80). This hierarchical, radial scheme also describes the descending degree of tribute that was provided to the court at the center, not only in the form of local products and services, but also in the form of political and cultural influence. When the center is strong, tribute moves in to reinforce it, with the greatest degree of influence on the center being exerted from elements close to the center itself: the court officials, the aristocracy, the wealthy merchants, the military leaders, the population of the capital. The center commands control during periods of stability and strength, maintaining its centripetal relationship with the diverse political elements that together constituted the aggregate called China. Through the accumulation of both cultural power and political power, the court rules from the center by appeal to a unifying ideology.

As the center weakens, however, incidental elements that were on the periphery have the potential to exert an increasing amount of influence in the gradual process of reshaping, and in some instances, subverting the center. To the extent they do so, they move inward and cease to be marginal.

This “inner-outer” concentric-circle model of hierarchical, overlapping centers articulating a central focus through patterns of deference seems pervasive in the peculiarly Chinese world view, and has explanatory force in delineating the genetic structure of most of China’s formal institutions—for example, the traditional sense of polity with the emperor at the center. Concrete, functioning patterns of deference contribute in varying degrees, and are constitutive of the authority at the center, articulating and bringing into focus the character of the social and political entity—its standards and values. The attraction of the core is such that, when it is strong enough, it draws into its field and suspends the disparate and diverse centers that constitute its field of influence. But when the core weakens, what had been contribution to the center becomes the energy of contest What was a tightening spire becomes a gyre, disgorging itself of its now disassociated contents. Politically, the welter of disparate organizational structures—clans, municipalities, religious associations, tribal affiliations, warlords, regional identities, and so on—with their original diversity in some degree having been concealed within the previously existing harmony, precipitate out and reestablish their independence.

Traditionally, those who fell from...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• The Contributors
• Series General Editor’s Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Map of Guangdong Province and Hong Kong
• 1. A Framework for Exploring the Hong Kong-Guangdong Link
• Part I: Hong Kong-Guangdong Link: A Review
• Part II: Cultural Transformation
• Part III: Economic Restructuring
• Part IV: Partnership in Flux
• Postscript: Mid-1992 Toward Mid-1994
• Index