Hong Kong Chronicles Institute’s latest book focuses on city’s key role in China’s reform and opening up since 1978
- China may not have transformed and opened up to the world without Hong Kong, book editor says
- Changes on mainland led city to change course, develop into global financial centre it is today
A new history book out on Monday tells the story of Hong Kong’s role in China’s economic reform and opening up since 1978, and how both have gained in the decades since, but the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown is a conspicuous absence in its chronology of related events.
The city played a “vital, critical and decisive” role in China’s economic miracle, said one of the book’s chief editors, Professor Edward Chen Kwan-yiu.
“It is possible that China would not have achieved its current status and excellent achievements as the world’s second-largest economy without the part played by Hong Kong, and Hong Kong people should be proud of that,” he told a media briefing on Friday.
The 19-chapter volume, Hong Kong’s Participation in National Reform and Opening Up, was unveiled during a ceremony at Government House on Monday.
Two years in the making, it is part of an ambitious history project led by the Our Hong Kong Foundation, a think tank chaired by the city’s first post-handover leader, Tung Chee-hwa, and published by its Hong Kong Chronicles Institute.
It focuses on the mutually beneficial relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China as the country rose from the wreckage of the Cultural Revolution to become an economic powerhouse and a major player on the international stage.
It was the country’s late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping who decided in 1978 that China should revamp its economy and open its doors to foreign investments and the rest of the world.
Chen, an economist and former president of Lingnan University, said the profound change in China also steered Hong Kong towards becoming an international financial centre.
He recalled that after the oil crisis of 1973-75, Hong Kong had considered focusing on heavy industry.
“But China’s reform and opening up emerged and made Hong Kong abandon that idea, and it sought instead to become a trade intermediary and financial business centre,” he said.
Hong Kong has since actively contributed to and benefited from the reforms on the mainland, with China’s share of Hong Kong’s global trade rising from 9.3 per cent in 1978 to 51.8 per cent last year.
About a decade into China’s reform and opening up, investors’ confidence was shaken by Beijing’s 1989 crackdown on student protesters at Tiananmen Square. Hongkongers also felt uneasy about the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997.
But there is no mention of the bloody suppression of the pro-democracy protests in the chronology of related events in the new book.
Chen said trade and investment data in the book indicated the effect of the Tiananmen Square incident, but added that its emphasis was on the economy, and politics would be covered in other books to be put out by the institute.
“This monograph does not comment on what happened. It only illustrates the facts,” he said.
At a 2018 ceremony marking 40 years of reform and opening up, President Xi Jinping hailed Hong Kong’s “unique and irreplaceable role” in the progress made, with Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor saying the city had been a “witness, participant, contributor and beneficiary”.
The new book’s three other chief editors are Professor Priscilla Lau Pui-king, a former Hong Kong deputy to the National People’s Congress and former Polytechnic University business professor, ex-Hong Kong Economic Journal chief editor Chan King-cheung, and the Hong Kong Chronicles Institute’s editorial assistant director, Luk Kam-wing.
Lau said Hongkongers should remember the city “proactively and closely” took part in China’s economic reform.
Institute president Sam Lam said the book aimed to help Hongkongers and mainlanders “learn from the past and know the present”.
“People under 40 may know a bit about the reforms, but they may not know that Hong Kong’s active participation helped its own development and that of the country,” he said.
The book is part of a massive 66-volume series led by the institute, which was established in 2019 by the Our Hong Kong Foundation.
It aims to record Hong Kong’s role as part of China from 7,000 years ago to up to 2017, covering everything from politics to the economy, people, culture and geography. The first book in the series was launched last year.
Chen was optimistic that Hong Kong and the mainland had a bright future over the next 25 years, with the tech and finance sectors continuing to play a big role.
“In terms of technology, Hong Kong has its own role, as some of its universities have done a good job in fundamental research,” he said.
“For the internationalisation of the Chinese yuan and the liberalisation of the financial industry, the mainland will closely collaborate with Hong Kong, [which] will be the base and starting point.”
