The Making Of Hong Kong Economy

I would like to discuss my opinion about an article “Economic History of Hong Kong” released by EH. net, mainly focusing on the importance of development during post-colonial period. According to the article, the economic history divides into 4 parts: pre-colonial period (1842-1949), post-colonial period (industrialization in 1949-1980), pre-return period (1978-1997) and post-return period (after 1997).

In order to explain how Hong Kong economy developed, changed and affected, the article illustrates some important events, for example, the signing of the Treaty of Nanking, the Cold War, the Open Door Policy announced by the PRC and Asian Financial Crisis from different period of time respectively. From my point of view, Hong Kong primarily enjoys a favorable natural geographical location which leads to economic success in both regional and global trade. However, even though I have learnt more about how Hong Kong was governed as the borrowed place under the British during lectures, I was still wondering what if Hong Kong was not ceded to the Britain: Would Hong Kong focus on economic development? Whether Hong Kong economy would still boom like nowadays? Or, would Hong Kong remain a fishing port instead of being an international financial center?

To a large extent, I believe that the governance of British government during colonial period seriously affected the economy by creating unlimited opportunities that built a stable foundation of being a successful financial center nowadays. Hong Kong’s economic history changed significantly after the 1967 Riots, the British government began to invest infrastructure to increase social mobility and emphasize on social reforms in 1970s.

Besides, the second lecture has also mentioned that corruption problem was extremely serious in 1950s and 1960s. Due to the case of Peter Godber corruption, ICAC was established in 1974 and it has the most profound impact that Hong Kong became clean in a very short period of time. A clean government is an essential key for Hong Kong's path to prosperity as it provides a fair and trustworthy platform for business trade that ensures interests will not exploited between competitions. After that, Hong Kong gradually emerged a new economic environment with abundant capital, advanced technology, talents and labor force. Therefore, economy started to diversify and employment in financial sector like banking, tourism and services increased rapidly at a compound rate of 8% from 1976 to 1982. Undoubtedly, it is indispensable that the British government played an important role on the reason why Hong Kong has become Hong Kong today. Without the post-colonial economic development, perhaps Hong Kong would not rise from a relatively inconspicuous port to the world’s third largest financial center.

I would like to analyze about the Hong Kong society in 1970s reflects in Samuel Hui Koon-kit’s songs. Sam Hui is an iconic Hong Kong singer who starts to create Cantonese Pop song with modern local elements such as social and economic issues in Hong Kong. It is very often that social problems are ironically described in his lyrics so as to reflect the plight of the low class and express the voice of the public. I am going to explain it through two different songs. First, I would like to use “Bun Gan Bat Leung” as an example. It addresses the situation of “wage earners”, the main working population’s hard life with “Pay more, gain less” in 1970s. [footnoteRef: 8] Lyrics below are directly translated from the original Cantonese song as the English version “The Private Eyes” does not correspond to the meaning in Chinese. The song begins with “All working hard, get a stomachache” and “Slaving for little money all through life”. It indicates that workers could only get little wages but worked extremely hard for a long period of time.

Also, “The boss is old rude crazy as hell, barking at us like a dog” and “Want to getting paid that I deserve”[footnoteRef: 10] describe about psychological pressure of boss’s unreasonable venting and suppression of salary increase request. This song perfectly exemplifies a bad social phenomenon of “boss hegemony” that would lead to mind oppression of the low-class workers. Therefore, Sam Hui is regarded as the Voice of Working Class as he wrote the truth and exposed it to the public. Second, “Song of Water Rationing” released in 1974, illustrates the water crisis faced by Hong Kong people during period of water rationing humorously. “Water rationing again, how will I shower tonight? I have to be dry the whole night. ” Back to Hong Kong in 1963, water in reservoirs could only last for 43 days so water restrictions were regulated. During the worst period, water only supplied for four hours every four days. Consequently, “Tomorrow morning gotta wake up earlier, I have to find some buckets of water”[footnoteRef: 14] people started collecting buckets of water in order to shower and wash clothes. The lyrics are closely related to the life troubles faced by small citizens in the 1970s and points out the inconvenience caused by the water system clearly. Apart from revealing social problems in Sam Hui’s lyrics, I remembered that the third lecture talked about whether Hong Kong was a cultural desert with mentioning detailed development of Hong Kong cinema. Cantonese movie industry included The Hui’s brothers’ productions such as Games Gamblers Play and The Last Message. I realize that we can not only observe Hong Kong society through films, but also lyrics do. No matter whether it is movie industry or music industry, Sam Hui’s work is a strong evidence to show that Hong Kong is definitely not a cultural desert.

Reflective Journal 3I would like to talk about whether Hong Kong political development threatens local citizens’ right and freedom. With the rising of political movements, there are increasingly news and publications talking about Hong Kong politics. However, discussion about whether Hong Kong citizens, especially the media, are still enjoying the freedom of speech and freedom of the press and of publication has been a hot issue over time. During the fourth lecture “The Road to 1997”, Prof. Yuen talked about the establishment of “One Country, Two Systems” because of the difference between China’s socialist system and Hong Kong’s capitalist system. It reminds me of The Basic Law Article 27 states that “Hong Kong residents shall have freedom of speech, of the press and of publication; freedom of association, of assembly, of procession and of demonstration; and the right and freedom to form and join trade unions, and to strike. Nevertheless, Bruce Lui, a former television reporter and journalism lecturer of Hong Kong Baptist University pointed out that, "Freedom of press and speech in Hong Kong is increasingly under pressure.

According to the World Press Freedom Index, Hong Kong dropped from 69 in 2016 to 73 in 2017 out of 180 which is regarded as partly free. Perhaps not many people really aware of this little change, but it reflects how our lives are changing with the political environment.

During the Umbrella Movement in 2014, it was easy to find that people used well-developed social media to obtain and spread instant social and political information as the Internet can reach a wide range of users. But after two months, police arrested at least 4 internet users who were accused for publishing “inciting” information. It demonstrates the problem of governance of freedom of speech online.

Besides, there were concerns about media ownership and self-censorship after a series of political movements as a group of journalists and staff members of TVB News Department sent a letter to express their dissatisfaction with the handling news during the Umbrella Movement. Moreover, a group of anti-occupation protestors set up tents to block the entrances and exits of Apple Daily, a journalist and two photographers were surrounded and attacked by the supporters of police. In late 2015, five Hong Kong booksellers disappeared as the company published and distributed critical books of General Secretary of CPC Xi Jinping until the mainland authorities officially confirmed that they were in custody in early 2016. Actually, not only the media or the publishers, I think these cases indicates that our freedom are being exploited and our rights to enjoy what mentions in the Basic Law are decreasing day by day. I am quite sure that no one would consider this phenomenon as a great starting point of political development. We all have responsibility to pay more attention to what is happening or changing around us so as to avoid problems that should not exist.