Demand for constitutional reform and a sense of Hong Kong Chinese identity grew only as the handover to China approached. British and Chinese interests dovetailed and the Chinese population was satisfied by the welfare reform and economic advancement perpetuated by Britain’s administrative officers. Under British imperial administration, Hong Kong grew from a collection of fishing villages to an international entrepôt, an industrial power and an international financial centre. The result was a hugely successful colony, especially in industry and finance, later inherited by the Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.
It stressed efficiency, honesty, fairness, benevolent paternalism and individual freedom. The British administration of Hong Kong uniquely derived its practices from the best traditions of Imperial Chinese government and its philosophical, Confucian basis. 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. Hong Kong is at the heart of modern China’s position as a regional-and potential world-superpower.
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