China beyond the headlines by Weston Timothy B. 1964-;Jensen Lionel M & Jensen Lionel M

Author:Weston, Timothy B., 1964-;Jensen, Lionel M & Jensen, Lionel M
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Area / regional studies, Asian / Middle Eastern history, Social conditions, International Relations - General, Current Affairs, History - General History, Relations, Politics/International Relations, China, Political, Asia - China, Political Science / General, United States, Political Process - General, Political Science, 1976-2000, Economic Conditions
Publisher: Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2000-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

China's New Economic Reforms

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1997, leading up to its reversion to China on July 1st, the U.S. media devoted a great many column inches, airspace, and time to speculating on the colony's economic and political future, almost all of it worriedly.

One reason for all the noise was to make clear to China that it shouldn't begin to see Hong Kong as a source of revenue after the reversion. It has long since ceased being a major exporter of toys, clothing, Christmas ornaments, and small appliances; these manufactures have moved north to Guangdong and Guizhou provinces. Hong Kong still engages in production, but it is mostly high-tech, high value-added manufacturing. The bulk of the economy has shifted to services, especially multifaceted financial services. The former colony is now a major player in the arena in which the high-rolling currency speculators, investors, and transnational corporations hold their games, and these groups don't want any changes in the rules of the games that might restrict their search for profits. Hence, the Chinese government must be disabused of any idea that some of the fruits of the Hong Kong economy might be taxed to provide social services for the 1.2 billion-plus—and growing—Chinese peoples. 9

Media worries about the future of democracy in Hong Kong were also highly misleading in a number of ways. First, little note was made of the fact that for 151 of the 156 years that Great Britain governed the colony, its citizens had no meaningful voice in government whatsoever; the first election that could even roughly be described as representative wasn't held until 1992.

Second, the "democracy" that developed after 1992 was (and is) a democracy very much like that of the United States: a hollow democracy, dominated by money and manipulated by those who have it or serving those who do. The great majority of Hong Kong proponents of democracy—Tung Chee-hwa, Joseph Yam, Anson Chan, even Martin Lee—are well-to-do members of the Hong Kong elite and do not espouse any populist ideas. They appear to have learned a lesson from places like Singapore—a lesson their Beijing brethren have not mastered—namely, that money-managed representative rule by an elite can be at least as effective in controlling an economy and a population as any nonelected one-party dictatorship. And under such rule the elite can simultaneously claim moral as well as political legitimacy for themselves.

U.S. media propagandist^ worries about Hong Kong coming under the thumb of Beijing also serve to keep alive the racist fear of a "Red Menace" China bent on expansion. Such fears continue to justify a bloated U.S. defense budget and are easily manipulated to justify a "get tough" foreign policy whenever it suits business interests to do so. Such fears currently

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