The Structure of Communist Party Control in Hong Kong

Abstract

Since World War II, the role of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Hong Kong has evolved from a small conspiratorial group lending support to the revolution on the mainland to a fully legitimate shadow government waiting in the wings for the handover of Hong Kong's sovereignty, scheduled for 1997. During the intervening years, the CCP in Hong Kong has performed additional functions, using Hong Kong as a base from which to spread propaganda among overseas Chinese about developments on the mainland and to conduct united front work. It has agitated against the activities of the Kuomintang (KMT) in Hong Kong and has attempted to set itself up as the legitimate protector of the rights and interests of the Hong Kong Chinese. And briefly, during the height of the Cultural Revolution on the mainland, it led an attempt to topple the colonial authorities in the territory. Beginning in the early 1950s, the CCP established an elaborate structure of political control in Hong Kong. 1 The scope of party control was at first relatively narrow and rested primarily on economic levers. More recently, ten years of economic reform in China and the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Future of Hong Kong have expanded the scope and, significantly, these changes have provided the party with wide administrative and political authority. To accommodate the new situation, the CCP in Beijing has upgraded the status and leadership of the party in Hong Kong and has exercised more direct control over its bureaucracy in the territory. By the mid-1980s, the institutional structure of party control was well entrenched in Hong Kong. Examining it gives significant clues to the future mechanisms of party control waiting to be expanded in the post1997 era.