Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Hong Kong as an International Commercial Center
- 2 Cooking the Rice without Cooking the Goose: The Rule of Law, the Battle over Business, and the Quest for Prosperity in Hong Kong after 1997
- 3 Hong Kong Faces 1997: Legal and Constitutional Issues
- 4 The Economic and Political Integration of Hong Kong: Implications for Government–Business Relations
- 5 Hong Kong and Greater China: An Economic Perspective
- 6 One Country, Two Currencies: Monetary Relations between Hong Kong and China
- 7 Political Participation in Hong Kong: Trends in the Mid-1990s
- 8 Strategic and Military Implications of Hong Kong Reversion
- 9 Hong Kong and China's Integration into the International Community
- 10 Hong Kong as a Problem in Chinese–American Relations
- 11 Post–July 1997 Challenges
- Index
4 - The Economic and Political Integration of Hong Kong: Implications for Government–Business Relations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Hong Kong as an International Commercial Center
- 2 Cooking the Rice without Cooking the Goose: The Rule of Law, the Battle over Business, and the Quest for Prosperity in Hong Kong after 1997
- 3 Hong Kong Faces 1997: Legal and Constitutional Issues
- 4 The Economic and Political Integration of Hong Kong: Implications for Government–Business Relations
- 5 Hong Kong and Greater China: An Economic Perspective
- 6 One Country, Two Currencies: Monetary Relations between Hong Kong and China
- 7 Political Participation in Hong Kong: Trends in the Mid-1990s
- 8 Strategic and Military Implications of Hong Kong Reversion
- 9 Hong Kong and China's Integration into the International Community
- 10 Hong Kong as a Problem in Chinese–American Relations
- 11 Post–July 1997 Challenges
- Index
Summary
ECONOMIC INTEGRATION
IN examining the economic integration between China and Hong Kong, one needs to distinguish between two types of integration. One type involves the increasing integration of the Hong Kong economy with the Chinese economy. This integration can be trade-related – Hong Kong exports to, or imports from, China – or it can be investment-related – Hong Kong firms move their manufacturing sites to China. The other type involves control by mainland Chinese firms over assets located in Hong Kong. Although these two types of economic integration are often lumped together, they in fact have different implications for government–business relations in Hong Kong.
Trade and investment integration with China is nothing new; Hong Kong has served as a trade entrepot between China and the rest of the world since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. Investment integration came much later, beginning in the late 1970s in reaction to China's open-door policies. It is important to point out here that trade and investment ties of this kind alone have not changed in any meaningful way the manner in which Hong Kong's economy is governed. Hong Kong has remained a laissezfaire economy regardless of the fact that an increasing proportion of its trade is with one of the most illiberal economies in the world.
Chinese acquisitions of Hong Kong assets are of a different order altogether: They are of far more recent vintage, closely connected with the imminent transition of sovereignty from the British to the Chinese.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Hong Kong under Chinese RuleThe Economic and Political Implications of Reversion, pp. 96 - 113Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997
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