Hong Kong's Influence on China: The Tail That Wags the Dog?

Abstract

In 1982, when talks began between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the United Kingdom (UK) over the future status of Hong Kong, speculation centered on their eventual outcome. Informed observers knew that only one result was acceptable to the PRC: the eventual return of the territory to Chinese sovereignty. Since the UK was in no position to dispute this, the only negotiating points were when and how such a changeover would occur. While much discussion has focused on the impact that a new PRC-Hong Kong relationship would have on Hong Kong, little attention has been directed at what influence Hong Kong might exert on China. Will it exert any significant influence, and if so, what form might this take? In August 1984 William McCord postulated that Hong Kong might be the tail to wag the Chinese dog.I Today, some four years later, Hong Kong seems already to exert a considerable degree of influence on the PRC. Hong Kong and China have long been closely linked, but the relationship has blossomed dramatically, particularly during the past nine years. The two have been drawn inexorably closer politically, economically, and culturally since the Third Plenum of the 11th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee in November 1978. The most significant event was the signing, in December 1984, of the Sino-British Joint Declaration that formalizes the handing over of the territory to China in 1997, while permitting Hong Kong to maintain its existing social and economic systems for fifty years as a Special Administrative Region of the PRC. In