1. This term embraces a concept widely employed and well understood (though not precisely defined) by Hong Kong scholars, whose usage this paper follows. See Davies, S. N. G., “One brand of politics rekindled,” Hong Kong Law Journal, Vol. 7, No. 1 (1977)Google Scholar; Scott, Ian, Political Change and the Crisis of Legitimacy in Hong Kong (London: Hurst & Co., 1989), ch. 1Google Scholar; Lau, Siu-kai, Society and Politics in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1982), pp. 124–27Google Scholar. Alvin So reviews the concept in “The Tiananmen Incident, Patten's electoral reforms, and the roots of contested democracy in Hong Kong,” in Chan, Ming K. (ed.), The Challenge of Hong Kong's Reintegration with China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1997), pp. 50, 77–78.Google Scholar

2. On the “state-business, symbiosis,” see Chiu, Stephen, The Politics of Laissez-faire. Hong Kong's Strategy of Industrialization in Historical Perspective (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, 1994), pp. 52–63Google Scholar; Choi, Alex H., “State-business relations and industrial restructuring,” in Ngo, Tak-Wing (ed.), Hong Kong's History. State and Society Under Colonial Rule (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 144, 153–54.Google Scholar

3. Xu Jiatun's two-volume Hong Kong Memoirs convey the impression throughout that in capitalist Hong Kong, it was more important to be in touch with the affluent and the prominent than with the work force and its representatives. Xu Jiatun Xianggang huiyilu (Taipei: Lianhebao, 1993).Google Scholar

4. Leung, Benjamin K.P., “Political development: prospects and possibilities,” in Leung, Benjamin K. P. (ed.). Social Issues in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 39.Google Scholar

5. See Ming-kwan, Lee, “Politicians,” in Wong, Richard Y. C. and Cheng, Joseph Y. S. (eds.), The Other Hong Kong Report 1990 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Lee, Jane C.Y., “The 1997 transition and Hong Kong's evolving political leadership,” in McMillen, Donald H. and DeGolyer, Michael E. (eds.), One Culture, Many Systems. Politics in the Reunification of China (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Shiu-hing, Lo, “Political opposition, cooptation and democratization: the case of Hong Kong,” in Pang-kwong, Li (ed.), Political Order and Power Transition in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Chi-kin, Lo, “From ‘through train’ to ‘second stove’,” in Cheng, Joseph Y. S. and Lo, Sonny S. H. (eds.), From Colony to SAR. Hong Kong's Challenges Ahead (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1995), pp. 30–34Google Scholar; Hing, Sonny Lo Shiu and McMillen, Donald Hugh, Images and Perceptions of the “Pro-China Hong Kong Elite” (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1995)Google Scholar. An important exception is Lau Siu-kai, although he too stressed “the preponderant obsession of China with the British threat” in Decolonization Without Independence and the Poverty of Political Leaders in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, 1990), pp. 25–29Google Scholar.

6. I am happy to record my indebtedness to my former colleague Helen Cheng, previously a Central Policy Unit Member, and to all her team, whose knowledge of the process, personalities and statistical problems involved was unrivalled.

7. E.g. Hong Kong Economic Journal, 29 12 1995Google Scholar, Wenhui bao, 2 11 1996.Google Scholar

8. The official reliance on media sources reflected the colonial administration's increasing inhibitions about research dealing with personalities and their backgrounds during the 1990s. Changing public attitudes led to statutory restrictions imposed by the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (1995).

9. The summaries were designed for general information and often used for nonattributable briefings. The colonial administration never undertook an analysis of China's appointees of the sort presented in this article.

10. In the annual Civil and Miscellaneous Lists. Hong Kong Government (Hong Kong: Government Printer). More limited information on public service in China was available from the annual China Directory in Pinyin and Chinese (Kawasaki: Radiopress, Inc.).

11. Principally Chi-kin, Lo and On-tat, Ho (eds.), Xianggang renminglu. 1995 Who's Who in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1994)Google Scholar but also Sinclair, Kevin (ed.), Who's Who in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Asianet Information Services, 1988).Google Scholar

12. Particularly Chan, Joseph Man and Lee, Chin-Chuan in Mass Media and Political Transition: The Hong Kong Press in China's Orbit (New York: The Guilford Press, 1991), pp. 54–62Google Scholar. Also Lau, Emily, “The early history of the drafting process,” in Wesley-Smith, Peter and Chen, Albert (eds.), The Basic Law and Hong Kong's Future (Hong Kong: Butterworths, 1988), pp. 90–98Google Scholar; McGurn, William (ed.), Basic Law, Basic Questions. The Debate Continues (Hong Kong: Review Publishing Company Ltd, 1988), pp. 165–68Google Scholar. Academics generally have relied on the media as the selection process grew more complex (e.g. Leung, Benjamin K.P., Perspectives on Hong Kong Society (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 42–43Google Scholar; Hook, Brian, “Political change in Hong Kong,” in Shambaugh, David (ed.), Greater China: The Next Superpower (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 205).Google Scholar

13. South China Morning Post, 5 09 1997.Google Scholar

14. New China News Agency (NCNA hereafter), 11 12 1996.Google Scholar

15. As recorded by the Shenzhen tequ bao (Shenzhen Daily), 12 12 1996Google Scholar and Min, Wang (comp.), Yi dai chuan wang Dong Jianhua (Tung Chee Hwa: The Shipping Tycoon of His Generation) (Beijing: Zhonghua gongshang lianhe chubanshe, 1997), p. 31.Google Scholar

16. The school was first raided and closed temporarily by the Hong Kong police in 1958 (NCNA, 26 August 1958) and closed permanently in 1968 (NCNA, 27 August 1968), despite grave official Chinese indignation.

17. E.g. John Chan Cho-chak (KMB chairman); Jack So Chak-wong (MTRC chief executive), Yeung Kai-yin (KCR chairman).

18. E.g. Edgar Cheng Wai-kin (medical practitioner), Donald Liao Poon-huai (architect), David Li Kwok-po (accountant).

19. Lieberthal, Kenneth, Governing China. From Revolution Through Reform (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995), p. 73.Google Scholar

20. For the polling evidence, see DeGolyer, Michael E., “Political culture and public opinion,” in Cheng, Joseph Y. S. (ed.), The Other Hong Kong Report 1997 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1997), pp. 172–76.Google Scholar

21. Dagong bao, 12 03 1996.Google Scholar

22. Including the “comprador Chinese big bourgeoisie,” even though “this class is a class which directly serves imperialism … and has always been a target of the revolution.” Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), Vol. II, pp. 288–290, 422–23, 442–48Google Scholar; Vol. I, pp. 13–14.

23. No more than one third, he laid down, and “on no account should our Party monopolize everything.” Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 445.Google Scholar

24. Mao Zedong assumed an identity of interests as well as a natural affinity between the Party and the working class. See Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 19Google Scholar; Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung, (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1971), pp. 290, 395.Google Scholar

25. Selected Works (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1969), Vol. IV, p. 203.Google Scholar

26. Major Documents of the People's Republic of China (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1991), p. 537.Google Scholar

27. Overholt, William H., China The Next Economic Superpower (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1993), p. 70.Google Scholar

28. They would have to “adhere to the capitalist system” and be “professionally competent.” They should include “as few as possible” from the “left.” Xiaoping, Deng, On the Question of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: New Horizon Press, 1993), pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

29. “Patriots” were defined as individuals who not only “love the motherland and Hong Kong” but would not do anything “detrimental to the interests of the motherland or … Hong Kong.” They should also support China's resumption of sovereignty, ibid. pp. 19, 11.

30. Ibid. pp. 52–56.

31. Ghai, Yash, Hong Kong's New Constitutional Order. The Resumption of Chinese Sovereignty and the Basic Law (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1997), especially pp. 139, 270, 465 and 468.Google Scholar

32. These attitudes are exemplified in the two volumes, Hong Kong's Economy, in the official Chinese research series on “The return of Hong Kong,” the second of which is simply a directory of 109 of Hong Kong's biggest businessmen. Duo, Chen and Chimeng, Cai, Xianggang dejingji yi and Chongjing, Yin and Huanguang, Cao (eds.), Xianggang de jingji er (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1996).Google Scholar

33. King, Ambrose Yeo-chi, “Administrative absorption of politics in Hong Kong: emphasis on the grass roots level,” in King, Ambrose Y. C. and Lee, Ranee P. L. (eds.), Social Life and Development in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1981), pp. 129–130.Google Scholar

34. Leung, Benjamin K.P., “Social inequality and insurgency in Hong Kong,” in Leung, Benjamin K. P. and Wong, Teresa Y. C. (eds.), 25 Years of Social and Economic Development in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, 1994), p. 191.Google Scholar

35. See the interesting analysis of this issue by Chai, B. Karin, “The politicization of unions in Hong Kong,”Google Scholar in McMillen, and DeGolyer, , One Culture, Many Systems.Google Scholar

36. See Siu-Iun, Wong, Emigrant Entrepreneurs. Shanghai Industrialists in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 190–91Google Scholar; Jao, Y. C. (ed.), Hong Kong's Banking System in Transition: Problems, Prospects and Policies (Hong Kong: Chinese Bank's Association Ltd, 1988), pp. 237–241Google Scholar; Cheng, Joseph Y.S., “Towards the establishment of a new order,” in Leung, Beatrice and Cheng, Joseph (eds.), Hong Kong SAR: In Pursuit of Domestic and International Order (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1997), p. 290.Google Scholar

37. E.g. Ping, Lu, Wenhui bao, 26 10 1993Google Scholar; Cheng, in Leung, and Cheng, , Hong Kong SAR, p. 290.Google Scholar

38. Shiu-hing, Lo, “Political opposition, co-optation and democratization: the case of Hong Kong,”Google Scholar in Pang-kwong, Li, Political Order and Power Transition, p. 135Google Scholar. His discussion of this issue is very perceptive.

39. “During the last six or seven years of the transition period.” Xiaoping, Deng, On the Question of Hong Kong, p. 18.Google Scholar

40. Lau, in Wesley-Smith, and Chen, , The Basic Law and Hong Kong's Future, pp. 93–104.Google Scholar

41. Dagong bao, 24 01 1992.Google Scholar

42. E.g. Ping, Lu, Director of the Hong Kong Macau Affairs Office, Dagong bao, 8 02 1993.Google Scholar

43. Ping, Lu, Wenhui bao, 4 01 1993.Google Scholar

44. See Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Qian Qichen's definition of the PWC's functions in Dagong bao, 17 and 31 07 1993.Google Scholar

45. Notably on a solution to the Court of Final Appeal dispute, for which the colonial administration was attacked. Cheung, Anthony B.L., “The civil service in transition,” in Cheung, Stephen Y. L. and Sze, Stephen M. H. (eds.), The Other Hong Kong Report 1995 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1995), p. 71.Google Scholar

46. The language used by Premier Zhao Ziyang and New China News Agency Deputy Director Li Zhuwen was not as unambiguous a commitment as Hong Kong believed. Kuan, Hsin-chi and Lau, Siu-kai, “Hong Kong's Search for a consensus: barriers and prospects,” in Chiu, Hungdah et al. (eds.), The Future of Hong Kong. Toward 1997 and Beyond (New York: Quorum Books, 1987), p. 105.Google Scholar

47. The Christian Industrial Committee's Lau Chin-shek. Shiu-hing, Lo, The Politics of Democratization in Hong Kong (London: Macmillan, 1997), pp. 212–13.Google Scholar

48. See Chan, Ming K., “Democracy derailed: realpolitik in the making of the Hong Kong Basic Law, 1985–90,” in Chan, Ming K. and Clark, David J. (eds.), The Hong Kong Basic Law. Blueprint for “Stability and Prosperity” under Chinese Sovereignty? (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1991), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

49. Norman Miners offers a very persuasive account of the Sino-British encounter in “Moves towards representative government 1984–1988,” in Cheek-Milby, Kathleen and Mushkat, Miron (eds.), Hong Kong. The Challenge of Transformation (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, 1989), pp. 24–31.Google Scholar

50. Bing-leung, Anthony Cheung, “The transition of bureaucratic authority: the political role of the senior civil service in the post-1997 governance of Hong Kong,”Google Scholar in Li, , Political Order and Power Transition in Hong Kong, p. 98.Google Scholar

51. Tsang, Steve, “Realignment of Power: The Politics of Transition and Reform in Hong Kong,”Google Scholar in Pang-kwong, Li, Political Order and Power Transition, p. 48.Google Scholar

52. Chan, in Chan, , The Challenge of Hong Kong's Reintegration With China, p. 2.Google Scholar

53. Pepper, Suzanne, “The 1995 Legislative Council Election. China's response in historical perspective,” in Kuan, et al. (eds.), The 1995 Legislative Council Elections in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, 1996), pp. 327–28.Google Scholar

54. The evidence from opinion polls on this subject is summarized in DeGolyer, Michael E., “Public opinion on Hong Kong's transition,” in Scott, Ian (ed.), Institutional Change and the Political Transition in Hong Kong (London: Macmillan, 1998)Google Scholar and Chung, Robert T.Y., “Public opinion in the late transition period,”Google Scholar in Cheng, and Lo, , From Colony to SAR.Google Scholar

55. Lee, in McMillen, and DeGolyer, , One Culture, Many Systems, p. 78Google Scholar; Ching, Frank, “The implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration,” in Cheng, Joseph Y. S. and Kwong, Paul C. K. (eds.), The Other Hong Kong Report 1992 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1992), p. 86.Google Scholar

56. So, Alvin Y., Hong Kong's Embattled Democracy. A Societal Analysis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 241–43Google Scholar; Cheng, Joseph Y. S., “Political participation in Hong Kong: trends in the mid-1990s,” in Cohen, Warren I. and Zhao, Li (eds.), Hong Kong under Chinese Rule. The Economic and Political Implications of Reversion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 167.Google Scholar

57. E.g. Wenhui bao, 4 03 1993Google Scholar; NCNA, 8 03 1994Google Scholar; Chiu, Sammy W. S., “Social welfare,” in Mee-kau, Nyaw and Si-ming, Li (eds.), The Other Hong Kong Report 1996 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1996), pp. 431–32.Google Scholar

58. The most conspicuous example was Jimmy Lai Chee-ying whose irreverence in his publications outraged Chinese officials.

59. Scott, , Political Change, p. 40.Google Scholar

60. The grassroots Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood provided seven members. The middle-class Liberal Party provided 19 members. The Heung Yee Kuk representing the “rural” New Territories provided 51 members (excluding individuals with membership of the two “pro-China” New Territories organizations).

61. The Chief Executive, C.H. Tung, made this complaint a regular theme in 1998, e.g. Government Information Services, 26 05, 8 10, 7 12 1998.Google Scholar

62. Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 421.Google Scholar

63. “Many business leaders believe that they have the experience and ability to deal with Beijing's appointees, but they lack the confidence to bargain with an elected government.” Cheng, Joseph Y.S., “Introduction,” in Cheng, Joseph Y. S. (ed.), Hong Kong in Transition (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 21Google Scholar. According to public opinion polls in July and August 1997, a majority still favoured Chris Patten's electoral arrangements over the post-colonial administration's proposals and also supported substantially more directly elected seats. ACR Opinion Poll, August 26–28, 1997 (Hong Kong: Asian Commercial Research Ltd, 1997), p. 6.Google Scholar

64. In 1998, public satisfaction with the Government's performance dropped to the lowest levels ever recorded. Government Information Services, 3 August 1998.

65. Provisional Legislative Council, Financial Affairs Panel, 6 10 and 17 11 1997Google Scholar; Proceedings, 13 01 1998.Google Scholar

66. Goodstadt, Leo F., “Hong Kong: an attachment to democracy,” The Round Table, Issue 348 (1998), pp. 486–87.Google Scholar

67. Hong Kong's 1996 Census recorded only 0.2% of the working population as employed in agriculture compared with an average 35% employed in “primary industry” for all China's cities. See State Statistical Bureau, China Statistical Yearbook 1997 (Beijing: China Statistical Publishing House, 1997), pp. 344, 332.Google Scholar

68. Sum, Milan Tung-wen and Wong, Timothy Ka-ying, “Priming and election: an analysis of the 1995 Legislative Council election,”Google Scholar in Kuan, et al. , The 1995 Legislative Council Elections, p. 185Google Scholar; Sai-wing, Leung, “The ‘China factors' and voters’ choice in the 1995 Legislative Council elections,”Google Scholar in ibid. pp. 233, 235.

69. Scott, , “An overview of the Hong Kong Legislative Council elections of 1991,” in Kwok, Rowena et al. (eds.), Votes Without Power. The Hong Kong Legislative Council Elections 1991 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1992), pp. 13, 20Google Scholar; Newman, David and Rabushka, Alvin, Hong Kong Under Chinese Rule: The First Year (Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1998), pp. 11–16.Google Scholar

70. See Yahuda, Michael, “Catalyst for change? The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Chinese politics,”Google Scholar in Leung, and Cheng, , Hong Kong SAR, pp. 27–30.Google Scholar

71. Qichen, Qian, NCNA, 8 12 1995.Google Scholar

72. E.g. Baptist University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Transition Project (May 1998) and 15 09 1995Google Scholar; SSRC University of Hong Kong, Pop Express, No. 7 (1997).Google Scholar

73. See Cheng, in Leung, and Cheng, , Hong Kong SAR, p. 287.Google Scholar