THE QUR PARTI
PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
HON G KONG
INTRODUCTION
Hong-Kong is the world's most important and powerful colony.
It is one
of the top twenty world's trading nations, With a population of over 4 million people, it exports more than India. By 1968 it provided 21% of all manufactured
this was exports from the "developing" countries to the industrialised world; more than double the next country (India) and was equal to that for Mexico, S.
It is debatable whether Hong- Korea, Brazil, Argentina and Pakistan combined. Kong can rightly be classified as a 'developing economy' in terms of its structural and sectional balance. Before its collapse in late 1973 the Hong- Kong Stock Exchange experienced the third largest turnover in the world, and equalled those of W. Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and Holland combined.
But
Last year Hong-Kong had the third highest GNP per capita in Asia. this was extremely maldistributed. The wealth of Hong-Kong is built on exploited cheap labour. Trade union rights are limited and political parties are banned. Whilst the Government has ensured the bare minimum social provisions to ensure the continuation of a workforce in the colony, it has and continues to act on the side of big business, which exercises economic and political power in Hong-Kong. Thus there is no minimum wage, no paid maternity leave, no limit on hours of work for males over 18, no pensions, no insurance provisions for widows with young children and no guaranteed free medical aid.
POLITICAL BACKGROUND
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(a) History: The present-day colony was acquired/three stages from China in the 19th century: i) The Island of Hong-Kong was acquired in perpetuity in 1842 afterthe 1st Opium War. ii) The Kowloon peninsula was granted in 1860 after British forces invaded Peking. iii) The New Territories were given in 1898 on lease after the Sino-Japanese War. The lease terminates at the end of 1997. The New Territories comprise 370.5 of Hong-Kong's 403.8 square miles.
China maintains that this was imperial plunder granted by Unequal. Treaties and has not recognised their validity.
The colony was not as important as Shanghai for British business, until after 1945. The Japanese invasion, the Civil War and/50sequent Communist regime have all increased Hong-Kong's refugee problem. Some of these 'refugees' were quite wealthy and transferred their assets from Shanghai and Canton to Hong-Kong in the late 1940's.
(b) Administrative and Legal: Formal power resides with the British Government; it appoints the Governor, the Colonial Secretary, the Financial Secretary and major Civil Servants. The Governor has an Executive Council (Exce)
Exco consists of the Governor, and a Legislative Council (Legco) to advise him. six officials and nine non-appointed officials. Legco has the Governor, 12 officials and 12 appointed non-officials. The appointees are almost exclusively
The Councils represent an from the business, legal and commercial circles. effective synthesis between an expatriate colonial regime and a local bourgeoisie (both Chinese and European). These Councils reflect where real power lies in Hong-Kong 1.e. in the business world. One local saying has it that "Hong-Kong is run by the Jockey Club, the Hong-Kong Dank, Jardine Matheson and the Governor
in that order.
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The only semi-elected body in the colony is the local Urban Council. Since
34,000 1973 it has a very limited franchise to elect 12 of its 24 members. people are entitled to vote and at the last election 8,673 people voted out of an adult population of over 2 million. Its powers are very limited and even those concerned with housing and car park maintenance, have been recently removed.
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/Restriction