Contriving ‘laissez-faire’: Conceptualising the British colonial rule of Hong Kong

Abstract

Hong Kong was under British colonial rule for half a century in the post-WW2 era of decolonisation. The question remains how this ‘success’ in colonial governance is related to the colony’s alleged laissez-faireism, which the neo-liberal economist Friedman highly praised. Contrary to what neo-liberals make us believe using the myth of small government, colonial political apparatus played an essential role in leading the Hong Kong Chinese into cutthroat competition by manipulating policy variables at their disposal. Scarcity was artificially created and competitions among Chinese themselves were intentionally yet subtly encouraged. The Chinese were thus diverted from direct ethnic confrontation with the British, which also succeeded in co-opting some of their wealthier groups into the colonial apparatus. The laissez-faire policy was thus contrived by the British colonial government in order to sustain its colonial rule. Using the example of space (land), this paper shows how the policy variables at disposal of the colonial government were manipulated to generate the system that might be called ‘contrived laissez-faireism’. Evidences that substantiate this hypothesis include the Kwng Tong industrial site development project and general regression analysis of Crown land disposal. The greater political autonomy of the Hong Kong British from London based on surplus budgets, as well as ethnic integration of the British ruling minority and subjugated Chinese majority, was achieved through this contrived laissez-faireism, which lead to a ‘stable’ colonial society until 1997.