City on the Edge. Hong Kong under Chinese Rule (2022)

"For decades, Hong Kong has maintained precarious freedom at the edge of competing world powers. In City on the Edge, Ho-fung Hung offers a timely and engaging account of Hong Kong's development from precolonial times to the present, with particular focus on the post 1997 handover period. Through careful analysis of vast economic data, a myriad of political events, and intricate networks of actors and ideas, Hung offers readers insight into the fraught economic, political, and social forces that led to the 2019 uprising, while situating the protests in the context of global finance and the geopolitics of the US-China rivalry. A provocative contribution to the discussion on Hong Kong's position in today's world, City on the Edge demonstrates that the resistance and repression of 2019-2020 does not spell the end of Hong Kong but the beginning of a long conflict with global repercussions"-- Provided by publisher List of Figures page x List of Tables xii Preface xv List of Abbreviations xx 1 Introduction 1 The Puzzling Broad Social Base of a Radical Uprising 4 Perspectives on a City That Refuses to Die 8 Cities and States in World Capitalism 12 Method and Outline: Capital, Empire, and Resistance 15 2 At Empires’ Edge, 1197–1997 22 Fishers and Empires 24 Agrarian Conflicts from Manchu to British Rule 27 Urban Industrial Class Formation 33 Hong Kong in the Longue Durée 39 Part I Capital 3 The Making of China’s Offshore Financial Center 45 The Hong Kong Gateway from Mao’s Autarky to the China Boom 47 International Foundations of Hong Kong’s Financial Centrality after 1997 51 The Rise of Mainland Chinese Capital 59 The Nexus of RMB Internationalization 63 4 The Mainlandization of Business Monopolies 72 The CCP–Local Business Elite Ruling Coalition 72 The Displacement of Local Capital by Mainland Capital 76 The Political Ascendancy of the Mainland Business Elite 83 Hong Kong in the US–China Rivalry 96 Part II Empire 5 “One Country, Two Systems” before Hong Kong 105 The Frontier Questions from the Qing Empire to the Chinese Nation 107 From Autonomy to Bloodbath in 1950s Tibet 112 The Taiwan and Hong Kong Questions in the Mao Era 117 6 From Autonomy to Coercive Assimilation 122 Forging a United Front in Support of Sovereignty Handover 122 Racialist Nationalism and National Security 129 Seeing Hong Kong Like an Empire 136 The Making of the CCP’s Direct Rule 140 Part III Resistance 7 The Class Politics of Democratic Movements 151 The Genesis of the Hong Kong Democratic Movement 153 The Advance of the Middle-Class Democrats 155 New Social Movements and Radicalization 161 8 Hong Kong as a Political Consciousness 172 Latent Localism in Social and Democratic Movements 173 On the Hong Kong City State 177 The Dawn of Localist Politics 183 The Occupy Movement 187 The Militants, the Separatists, and Hong Kong Self-Determination 193 9 Conclusion: Endgame or New Beginning? 198 The Early Arrival of 2047 201 Financial Centrality on the Line 206 Hong Kong’s Future in Comparative and Global Perspective 209 Glossary 218 Notes 224 References 251 Index 277 A comprehensive and timely account of Hong Kong's development from precolonial times to the present, City of the Edge considers the 2019 unrest in Hong Kong within the context of global finance and the geopolitics of the US-China rivalry in its long struggle for autonomy and democracy.