Search

This study examines the experiences of two generations of intellectuals that migrated to Hong Kong in 1919 and 1949.* The earlier generation included the former Qing remnants Lai Jixi (賴際熙) and Chen Botao (陳伯陶), and the latter included Tang Junyi (唐君毅), a prominent advocate of Neo-Confucianism. Although they shared a similar ethnic pride, they developed divergent attitudes about the colony of Hong Kong. The former Qing remnants all harmoniously related with the local Chinese elites and businessmen in Hong Kong and, thus, successfully integrated with the mainstream Chinese community. They maintained their traditional Chinese culture while working together with the colonial government even as the cultural gap between Hong Kong and Mainland China expanded. In 1949, significant political changes caused by the creation of the People’s Republic of China created a second generation of immigrants, including Neo-Confucianist Tang Junyi, who shared similar attitudes about traditional culture with the earlier immigrants. However, they developed totally different ideas about Hong Kong with respect to nationalism and colonialism. Although Tang and other immigrants like him all claimed to be proponents of traditional Chinese culture and to promote orthodox traditions, they also held different ideas about culture. This study investigates how Tang Junyi’s nationalism and critical attitudes towards coloniality developed, while also explaining the limitations of his efforts to re-establish China’s national culture without participating in the local culture. This examination not only facilitates our understanding of how elites and intellectuals in Hong Kong saw Chinese culture through different periods but also helps us reflect on the roles and functions of Hong Kong during the historical and cultural development process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Humanitas Taiwanica is the property of National Taiwan University, Humanitas Taiwanica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on several street protests staged in Hong Kong since its handover to China in 1997, including a rally held by students against a government attempt to introduce national education into the school curriculum and the Umbrella Movement which began on September 28, 2014.

Little research has paid attention to the Anti-Moral and National Education (Anti-M&N) movement during 2011–12 in Hong Kong, which, to a large extent, provided the resources and tactical preparations for the 2014 Umbrella Movement. In this study, the author unfolds the mobilization of the 2012 Anti-M&N movement: the dynamics of different organizations as well as the processes of accumulating and integrating movement resources. Studies of movement resource mobilization have focused on material resources and professional-based human resources. In recent years, much research has claimed that the new technologies have transformed the way movements are mobilized. Founded on the resource mobilization premise, this study unveils how the mobilization process has become hybrid, as the existing social movement organizations (SMOs) and their coalition networks and online channels collectively drive the evolution of activism in terms of format and scale. Visual resources were also manufactured by organizers as a way to increase the affective connection among the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an ethnographic exploration of the Umbrella Movement that occupied and re-spatialized the arterial streets of Hong Kong in late 2014. It examines how communities made up of hamlets of tent-dwelling demonstrators evolved, in particular, out of the Admiralty occupied area. Through a sense of communitas exercised among these communities, occupied areas were infused with ‘pure potentiality’ and transformed into liminoid spaces. As a result, the previously undifferentiated space of roads took on new meanings and was redefined to facilitate the discursive needs of these communities. Such transformation of space also reveals the tonality of life among the communities, and how they relate to each other through the moral idiom of care. While short-lived, the communal re-spatialization of the Umbrella Movement articulated images of a utopian Hong Kong as well as a critique of Hong Kong’s political plight, often through irony and humor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the significance of global trends in higher education (HE) development in Hong Kong between 1997 and 2012. Two trends, massification and internationalisation, are considered key driving forces that shaped Hong Kong’s HE policy during the period. The former refers to government measures to widen participation in HE. The latter is associated with Hong Kong’s regional education hub strategy. Universities in the city revised their governance structure in these contexts. The article first explains why massification and internationalisation entered the HE policy discourse in Hong Kong in the late 1990s, and how they were materialised by neoliberal practices in the 2000s. Subsequently, it reveals how the two trends influenced university governance by examining the development of the University of Hong Kong Group. Based on this review, this article argues that the HE development can be perceived as an extension of structural transformation of the Hong Kong economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The case of Hong Kong provides a substantial re-examination of what it means to be a cosmopolitan from above, both historically in terms of real colonial presence and power – that of the British Empire at the height of its pink-flushed world domination – and as a ‘model minority’ under such circumstances as well as in the postcolonial world of modern Hong Kong. The history of the Jews in Hong Kong illustrates the pitfalls in assuming the view of ‘cosmopolitan of the above’ is uniform or indeed ‘from above’. The confusion of the cosmopolitan with the utopian goals of transhistorical views of mobility with the lived practice of Jews in British and now Chinese Hong Kong is a powerful corrective of this view. Focusing on Hong Kong, this former British Colony and now a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China, situated simultaneously at the centre and at the periphery of debates about the cosmopolitan, this article adds a new dimension to the parallel discussions of Jewish cosmopolitanism in Europe and North America. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement (September–December 2014) represented a watershed in Hong Kong's political culture and self-understanding. Based on over 1,000 slogans and other textual and visual material documented during the movement, this study provides an overview of claims, which are oriented towards an assertion of agency, articulated at different levels: in a universalistic mode (“democracy”), in relation with a political community (Hong Kong autonomy and decolonization), and through concrete policy aims. At the same time, slogans mobilize diverse cultural and historical repertoires that attest the hybrid quality of Hong Kong identity and underscore the diversity of sources of political legitimacy. Finally, it will be argued that by establishing a system of contending discourses within the occupied public spaces, the movement strived to act out a type of discursive democracy. Despite the challenges that this discursive space encountered in interacting with the authorities and the public at large, it represented an unfinished attempt to build a new civic culture among Hong Kong's younger generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented that establishes a provisional socio-cultural history for early 20th-century Hong Kong and explores the idea and expression of modern architecture in the interwar years.

Sporting events have become the focus of government interest in Hong Kong in recent years. The Hong Kong Games (HKG) in particular is aimed at promoting sports participation and community cohesion within the 18 districts. Since the debut of the HKG in 2007, no academic research has been conducted to explore the actual impact of the Games on sustainable sports participation in Hong Kong. This paper addresses the underexplored issue of the links between hosting the HKG and the perceptions of the social and economic impact of such events within the framework of social exchange theory. A total of 532 questionnaires were collected from sports students undertaking tertiary education in Hong Kong. The statistical results clearly indicated a lack of community support for the HKG. Hence, this paper makes recommendations on the integration of the ‘sports-for-all’ concept in the wider community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the legacy of Austria-born Canadian urban theorist and college professor John Friedmann in Hong Kong, China. Friedmann reportedly first visited Hong Kong in 1997 where he provided strategic directions for civic activism using his radical planning methods. Topics include the planning challenges he posed to Hong Kong, urban planning theories, and the government of Hong Kong's efforts to support urban planning projects.

Scholarly work in the 1990s indicated that the values of civil servants in late colonial Hong Kong were evolving from those of classical bureaucrats to those of more political bureaucrats as the political and social environment changed. Based on in-depth interviews with 58 politicians and senior civil servants carried out between 2009 and 2012, we argue that Hong Kong civil service values have adapted owing in part to external shocks such as regime change and governance reform. Still, traditional civil service values such as fiscal prudence and balancing various community interests continue to be prominent. We illustrate the influence of civil service values in two policymaking cases: small-class teaching and minimum-wage legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a historical background of the building of new towns in Sha Tin in Hong Kong, China, which started in 1970.

At the time of his death in July 2008, Tony Sweeting was working on three major projects. The most fulfilling of these was a longstanding plan to publish a book on Hong Kong Eurasians, an undertaking that had the full support of his wife Sansan. The purpose was 'to characterise Hong Kong Eurasians--of the past, the present, and the future--as clearly as possible'. His was a deeply personal response to the question of 'Why study Hong Kong Eurasians?' for he planned to dedicate the book to his two children, Justin and Jacinta. Tony completed only three chapters. The third, titled 'Historical Sketches', aimed at examining the development of the Eurasian community in Hong Kong from the 1840s to the present day. It forms the basis of the edited article that follows. We have attempted to retain as much of Tony's inimitable style as possible, but it has been necessary to prune significantly to make the text suitable for publication in the Journal. It is hoped that by publishing some of Tony's unfinished work on Hong Kong's Eurasian community other scholars will be encouraged to take up the work and perhaps produce a definitive study of this important facet of Hong Kong's history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A biography of Chinese intellectual Qian Mu is presented. He was born in 1895 in China and left China in 1949 to live in exile in Hong Kong, China and later in Taiwan. Information on his political views, Chinese history and culture, and his separation from his family is presented. Also included is information on his death in 1990.

This paper explains the nature of David Li’s concept of ambiguous property rights and three angles to see right ambiguity from a Coasian-constrained choice-theoretical perspective and elaborate on that ambiguity in terms of five scenarios of de jure and de facto rights. The case of indigenous village housing in post-colonial Hong Kong under a mature system of the rule of law is used to demonstrate the ambiguities due to a gap between de jure and de facto property rights that may not degenerate into anarchy due to rational choices made under common law constraints driven ultimately by the land market. The implications of the case study for evaluating ambiguities in property rights in China are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The early twentieth century witnessed both the thriving of Chinese newspapers in the British colony Hong Kong and the boom of Chinese translation of foreign literature. This article, through the translated literature in Chinese newspapers, explores the interaction among print media, Chinese women, and translation in the early twentieth century Hong Kong. It argues that many factors contributed to the prevailing ideology concerning women in the British colony, including the skewed sex ratio, Confucianism as the hegemonic ideology, and the conspiracy between elite Chinese and the colonial rulers, and thus that the manipulation of images of women in Chinese translations was ideologically motivated. Such pervasive ideology characteristic of Hong Kong at that given moment in history undoubtedly created pressures on the translators, which were exacerbated by the difference in the construction of the images of women in the English original and its Chinese translated counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women rarely appear in the colonial record and when they do, it is usually as a problematic group. However, just occasionally a woman does appear in her own right. This articles looks at one such instance and uses it to demonstrate how a seemingly isolated piece of evidence can be used to demonstrate the accepted social behaviour of women and men in nineteenth-century colonial Hong Kong and how individuals negotiated their way round these norms to achieve what they wanted through a performance that married the cultural preconceptions of their audience with their own notion of self. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses Sham Shui Po neighborhood in Hong Kong, China. Topics discussed include poverty in the area, unprivileged residents and urban development in Hong Kong. Other topics such as urban history of Hong Kong, gentrification and interviews of Sham Shui Po residents are also discussed.

The article presents a historical overview of British government-run filmmaking in the colony of Hong Kong during the 1930s and 1940s. Particular focus is given to the struggle between the Colonial Office (CO) of the British Colonial Film Unit (CFU) and the documentary film movement in Great Britain known as Griersonian tradition, after the filmmaker John Grierson. Additional topics include World War II propaganda films produced by the CFU and the British Ministry of Information (MoI) to promote British aims in its colonies during the conflict and differences in film production in large and small British colonies.

This article examines post-war British cultural diplomacy in Hong Kong, focusing on the British Council and Hong Kong House. Drawing on colonial office, British Council and Hong Kong government archival collections, it argues that neither the British nor Hong Kong governments placed a high priority on promoting British cultural values to the Hong Kong Chinese. Moreover, even this limited emphasis declined after the late nineteen-sixties, reflecting both Britain's retreat from what John Darwin calls the 'empire project' and the emergence of a more pronounced Hong Kong local identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Britain's colonial cities benefitted greatly from town planning practices that originated in the mother country. Hong Kong, one of many British colonial cities, grew from a small fishing village to an international metropolis. Urban development in the colony from 1841 to 1941 was continuous and systematic but ended abruptly with the Japanese invasion in World War II. The period was marked by rapid urban growth which brought with it many problems for the colonial management. This paper reviews the urban history of Hong Kong over the 100-year period from 1841 and explores the development motives of the colonial administration. The colonial government appointed British professionals for specialized roles and their services were apparent in significant milestones in the city's town planning and construction. The paper highlights the contributions of a few significant personnel: A.T. Gordon, C.G. Cleverly, Osbert Chadwick, David J. Owen and Wilfred H. Owen. By describing the works of these British colonial professionals, the authors hope to illustrate their impact on the development of Hong Kong, linking history to the present and filling gaps in the study of Hong Kong's early town planning. Both archive research and on-site study were employed in the preparation of this paper which is expected to complement other studies of colonial city planning in Asia and Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article advocates for the cultural and archaeological study of the rice farming heritage of Hong Kong. Introductory comments are offered discussing the value of cultural history, the lasting influence but declining memory of Hong Kong's agricultural past, and the features of a landscape-centered approach to cultural archaeology. It is then argued that a representative agricultural village should be studied, surveying the economic, physical-environmental, and spiritual aspects of the region's rice farming tradition in contrast to the region's urban growth since the mid-20th century.

Utilizing sources from newspapers, published official documents, and declassified governmental files from archives in Hong Kong and England, this article explores the problem of unregistered schools in Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s. After the war the Hong Kong colonial government played a limited role in education provision, and private institutions became the chief providers of schooling facilities. To prevent private schools from operating in a manner detrimental to the political stability of the territories, and to ensure pupils' health and safety, the ruling authorities imposed strict regulations. This approach increased the cost of running private schools, caused a substantial portion of education demand to remain unfulfilled, and consequently led to the emergence of unregistered schools. These unlawful institutions placed the government under tremendous pressure, both because some were tied to questionable political factions and because the founding of these institutions provoked objections from operators of legal private schools. Since the colonial state continued to assume a limited role in education provision, strong action brought against unlawful institutions would have further increased the number of unschooled children and undermined the popularity of the government. These pressures made the presence of black market schools a very difficult problem to resolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes an autonomous force that existed in the school system during the Hong Kong colonial period from 1946 to 1976. In the colonial period, pro-Beijing patriotic schools served as a subordinate culture within schools and attempted to construct an alternative, socialist and People’s Republic of China-centred (PRC-centred) identity by providing affordable education for ordinary people. This sociological–historical study provides an understanding of how these schools constructed an alternative culture that opposed the colonial government. It explores and records the socio-political background in which Hong Kong pro-Beijing ‘patriots’ (socialists/leftists) set up education for children, the social history of the patriotic faction and its schools, the teaching and learning methods and the socialist strategies of patriotic education in colonial Hong Kong. The study illustrates the interplay between politics and education through a case study of pro-Beijing patriotic schools in Hong Kong.Pro-Beijing patriotic schools were the only type of school that prepared students for the eventual rule of the PRC after the 1940s. The patriotic schools, together with other PRC-affiliated organizations, represented the influence of the PRC in Hong Kong. It was part of an organized process that was intended to shape consciousness systematically, develop knowledge and form attitudes. The interplay between socio-political development and education enables us to rethink the role that schools could and should play in present day Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the political connection between Hong Kong and China, particularly a decision by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to change representation in the Chief Executive and Legislative Council (LegCo) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). This change is analyzed in terms of how it could be a move by China to control social issues in Hong Kong and prevent a disruption that could extend to China. A history of Hong Kong beginning in the 19th century, including how the area was a colony of Great Britain, is presented. Relations between Hong Kong and the CCP and the eventual return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 are discussed. Capitalism in Hong Kong influenced relations between it and China. Other topics include the Basic Law, the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, and democracy movements in China.

The article presents an analysis on the role of patriotic schools as an alternative state formation in the colony of Hong Kong, China from 1946 to 1976. It examines various records on the initialization of education of pro-Beijing patriots to their children, socialist strategies and social history of patriotic schools in colonial Hong Kong. It explains how the elements of the curriculum and education practices of patriotic schools demonstrate the integration of the indigenous culture and distinct hegemony of Hong Kong. It cites the role of educational system in economic prosperity and social stability through the teaching of norms, values, and concepts of dominant group.

The Master and Servant Act was a law that allowed the use of penal sanction against workers for breach of contract in nineteenth century Britain. For scholars who believe that wage laborers under capitalism are free from “extra-economic” coercion, this law was an anomaly. One explanation suggests technological backwardness during the early stages of capitalism as the cause. In this paper I will challenge this account and offer an alternative explanation. As the British Empire expanded, the same law was enacted in many British colonies. If it was the process of capitalist production that rendered the Master and Servant Act necessary, this explanation should also apply to the British colonies. By focusing on Hong Kong, I show that this was not the case. Instead, I show that the use of judiciary coercion could be explained by Bourdieu's notions of doxa, habitus and field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the activities of several U.S. non-governmental agencies (NGOs) in Hong Kong during the 1950s. It examines the non-governmental agencies known as the Yale-China Association, the Asia Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. The article discusses how the NGOs acted in relation to the asserted U.S. Cold War philosophy of Communist containment policy and the impact that the NGOs had on cultural education in Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China (PRC), particularly upon the New Asia institution.

The article discusses debates about Chinese female bondservants ("mui-tsai" or "meizai") in late 19th-century Hong Kong and how they reflect the changing politics and culture of the British colony. Competing views among colonial administrators from Great Britain are discussed, with some seeing this form of involuntary domestic servitude as a violation of the British ban on slavery, and others seeing it as an outdated custom that would fade with the modernization of China. Also discussed is the rise of Chinese elites with enough power to defend the "mui-tsai" system as a respected Chinese custom.

The article discusses the Stanley Civilian Internment Camp on the Stanley Peninsula of Hong Kong, China, which was used by the Japanese Army to intern residents of Hong Kong during World War II. The author describes the scenery and landscape surrounding the camp. The site is currently home to St. Stephen's College. A massacre perpetrated by the Japanese Army near the site during the Battle of Hong Kong is examined. The Stanley Military Cemetery, also on the grounds, is described in detail. Various photographs of the area are provided.

The article discusses various kinds of military fortifications and defenses installed by the British on the island of Hong Kong, China that were used during World War II. More specifically, the author describes in great detail various types of pillboxes, machine gun positions, and gun casemates. The author details the ways in which these various types of coastal defenses were strategically placed to deter the invading Japanese military forces from engaging in a naval invasion. Many photographs of these defensive structures are provided at the close of the article.

The article explores the history and scientific heritage of Western medicine in Hong Kong, China and its preservation at the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences. The museum also features exhibitions of traditional Chinese medicine. The medical history of the city is discussed with special attention to the plague outbreak of 1894 and a protected monument originally named the Bacteriological Institute. Other topics include educational programs organized by the museum and the preservation of cultural heritage.

The essay is a general overview of Hong Kong's historical and cultural developments from the vintage of 2007. It first discusses Hong Kong's identity question in light of the city's recent history, analyzing its origins and formation after the early 1970s (but the issue subsided after 1997). The second part of the essay deals more speculatively with Hong Kong future in relation with its past and present in terms of a conjunction of regionalism, nationalism, globalism, and cosmopolitanism - and their competing claims. It concludes by evolving several possible scenarios and a course of action based on Hong Kong's collective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an exposition that HongKong has its own distinct place even before the edge of the Chinese and British empires. There were three themes presented to proved this historical investigation. HongKong has its own nature of place, shapen by its own role as a space of movement of goods and products through its colony's influence with South China and with its historical experiences from the British empire.

The article discusses the condition of film research and film study in Hong Kong during the 1960s. Though the decade was considered prosperous for the Hong Kong cinema, this was the time when film research and study were relatively under-developed. It was in this era when no film school or film department in universities and very few film related courses were offered. It was not until the opening of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, that the British invested more resources on higher education in Hong Kong and studies in Chinese and local culture in 1964. Then in 1966-1976, the Cultural Revolution in China came into full force.

Examines issues generated by the collision of British Hong Kong, the Soviet Union and China during the 1920s. Extent of Soviet involvement in Hong Kong and South China; Reasons why the communist movement collapsed in the Soviet and Hong Kong by the late 1920s; Divisions between Comintern and Soviet Foreign Ministry officials over Soviet policy toward Hong Kong; Hong Kong’s significance in Soviet policies toward both China and colonial empires; Alliance between the Soviet Union and its international agent, the Comintern, with the Chinese Nationalist Guomindang Party.

The article examines the post-nostalgic stage of filmmaking in Hong Kong, China using the works of Ann Hui and Fruit Chan as examples. The films discussed seek to reinterpret nostalgia and disappearance in post-handover Hong Kong. In a study on local history writing in Hong Kong before and after the 1997 divide, there exists a cluster of texts called topographical histories, a mixed genre of anecdotal essays, gazetteer-like narratives, photograph albums, etc., that take their premise locality and topography in depicting the city's history. Hui and Chan like to reconstruct through the camera lens the old cityscape in their films. The author also discussed the aspect of the post-1997 cinematic landscape created by Hui and Chan in their recent films.

Explores the formation of subculture in Hong Kong after the colony was returned by the British government to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Emotionality of subcultural politics; Emotional energies produced in everyday interactions within subcultural groups and between these groups and mainstream society; Uprising of alternative music bands in post-1997 Hong Kong.

Focuses on the musical events during the handover ceremonies in Hong Kong, China. Impact of musical performances on transition process of the country; Influence of music on the response of observers and participants of the events; Role of composers, choreographers and performers in the musical performances.

Presents the author's views on the structural changes that have taken place in Hong Kong, China since 1997. Fact that the sense of doom and gloom which in 1984 first greeted the announcement of Hong Kong's return to China gradually modulated into a sense of doom and boom around 1997; Fact that the red chip stock became just as much in demand as the blue chip stock; View that disaster was averted because the SAR government did the unexpected, and for many, the unthinkable.

This paper examines the formation of modernity in three colonialist epics of Hong Kong and the recent historical and fictional works that aim to rewrite the history of the'local'. Adopting a challenge-response structure, the paper argues that the colonialist epics construct a monolithic discourse of modernity-as-progress via the amnesia of conflicts, tensions, and processes of domination and negotiation in the rural and everyday space of colonial Hong Kong. It is stressed that to piece together the above anomalies is not an attempt to restore a pre-given'native' to but rather an endeavour to examine how the 'local' as divergent historical agents shaped and has been shaped by the political, social, and economic environment of Hong Kong and the larger world outside. This can be called a model of dialectics composed of an internal dialectic and a dialectic of articulation. In this regard, with the benefit of the rapprochement of history and anthropology and a non-linear view of history, this paper is a historical bricolage of the anomalous history of Hong Kong, aiming to destabilize the Hong Kong historical grand narrative. Through rethinking the impact of the colonial experience, this paper hopes to liberate alterity and diversity in historical interpretations and imaginations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the efforts to exteriorise and communalise Hong Kong in the public celebrations marking the 1997 ‘handover' from British to Chinese rule. Using Bhabha's notion of the colonial stereotype, I document the importance of commodifying history and the fusion of both epitaphs to Empire and invocations of Chinese nationalism as twin forms of colonialism. The repetition of stereotypes is traced to a transnational logic aimed at marketing events to a global television audience. I conclude that the dominant representational reliance on repetition functioned to prolong the constitutive anxieties provoked by the handover, preserving them in the public domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the long-term campaign undertaken by China to regain the British Colony of Hong Kong. Efforts to prevent flight of capital and manpower; Cultivation of a core group of sympathetic local notables as future political leaders; Pledges of non-interference on the affairs of Hong Kong; Description of the colony's new status as the Special Administrative Region of China.

Considers the transition and handover processes in Hong Kong, China in terms of constitutional development. Discussion on the Hong Kong constitutional order; Fundamental challenges to the constitutional order; Conclusion.

Explores how the space of the New Territories of Hong Kong is a political construction. How the British colonial government of Hong Kong acquired the New Territories; Argument that the acquisition by the British colonial government of the New Territories through land lease has transformed it into special place; Examination on how different policies were adopted by the British to govern the New Territories.