Conference: Twenty Years After: Hong Kong’s Changes and Future under China’s Rule

Organizers

Department of Government and International Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University

French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC)

Logo CEFC New

20170921 Conference Poster

Summary:

This academic conference aims at analysing the major facets of Hong Kong’s transformations since its return to China in 1997 and assessing the present status and future of the “One Country, Two System” formula.

Twenty years after the handover, Hong Kong’s special status and “high degree of autonomy” within the People’s Republic of China’s constitutional order continue to attract media and scholarly attention. How have the Chinese Communist Party’s policy and strategy towards the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) changed over the years and how has the “One Country, Two System” formula been coping with Hong Kong people’s increasingly assertive identity and growing demands for democratization, especially among the younger generations? Within an increasingly globalized and competitive environment, how have Hong Kong’s patterns of socio-economic inequality, income distribution and social mobility changed over the last twenty years? While keeping the political status quo, how has the HKSAR government transformed its quest for legitimacy and support among different groups of the society? What have been the patterns of identity making among Hong Kong people and how has their relationship with the mainland evolved since 1997? Eventually, how can Hong Kong’s external relations and more generally of internationalization be characterised? These are some of the questions that will be tackled and debated by cutting-edge political scientists, political economists, media specialists, historians and anthropologists during this international conference.

In other words, the objective of this conference is to reflect upon Hong Kong’s major political, legal, economic, social and cultural changes in the last twenty years and draw some conclusions that would help us better comprehend the current trends at play as well as the future evolution of Hong Kong as a SAR of China.

Programme of the conference, please click here.

Videos of the conference are available below:

Opening Speech

Constitutional Crisis in Hong Kong: Twenty Years On?

Speaker: Prof. Michael Davis

Panel 1 :

State Power and Corporatist Governance in Hong Kong: Structures. Agents and Mechanisms

Speaker: Edmund Cheng

Open Society and Its Enemies: the Crisis of “One Country, Two Systems” and the Future of the Democracy Movement

Speaker: Kenneth Chan

No More Paradox? Revisiting the Political Economy of the Hong Kong Media

Speaker: Francis Lee