Cultural affinity plus Beijing’s coercive leverage drove Hong Kong’s economic pre-integration before 1997

Evidence

The combination of growing economic power and shared Chinese culture led Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore increasingly to involve themselves with the Chinese homeland. Accommodating themselves to the approaching transfer of power, Hong Kong Chinese began to adapt to rule from Beijing rather than London. Businessmen and other leaders became reluctant to criticize China or to do things that might offend China. When they did offend, the Chinese government did not hesitate to retaliate promptly. By 1994 hundreds of businessmen were cooperating with Beijing and serving as “Hong Kong Advisors” in what was in effect a shadow government. In the early 1990s Chinese economic influence in Hong Kong also expanded dramatically, with investment from the mainland by 1993 reportedly more than that from Japan and the United States combined. By the mid-1990s the economic integration of Hong Kong and mainland China has become virtually complete, with political integration to be consummated in 1997. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 464

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how power centers co-opt local elites into shadow governance before formal annexation.
• SEED: A possible essay angle: economic integration as the soft prelude to political absorption, using Hong Kong as the template.