Responses to Carol Jones' Review of Whither Hong Kong: China's Shadow or Visionary Gleam?

Albert H. Yee's Response

In my "Preface" to Whither Hong Kong? I indicate the profound concerns of the authors in this book for Hong Kong and its people and the unique qualifications of these authors to cover the history of their respective topics and to offer comments on Hong Kong's future prospects. I also explain how I and the contributors worked together over several years to achieve our goals:

Taking Hong Kong's return as its natural parent, Mainland China is hardly the dying colossus that consented to its forced adoption by Britain, also vastly changed since its former imperious nature. With a population that approximates London and is larger than Los Angeles and Chicago combined and an economy that has ranked among the world's best, far ahead of both Britain and China in per capita terms, Hong Kong today is nothing like it was in 1841. Indeed, its history and prospects deserve a fair telling.

Since this book attempts to relate Hong Kong's past to today's realities and tomorrow's possibilities, nary one or two persons commands the expertise for the comprehensiveness desired. Thus, as editor, I recruited distinguished authors who know Hong Kong intimately and have lived and worked there professionally for many years. Providing relevant history and critical analysis, each chapter discusses Hong Kong from critical perspectives that its author has been involved with for long and knows firsthand. . . .

The Overview and our chapters, therefore, review Britain's rule, Sino British relations, American involvement, the people and institutions of Hong Kong and prospects for what is now named the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China (PRC). This book represents our knowledge, insights and sentiments grown out of lifetimes and many years in the territory and concerns for its future.

A number of books on Hong Kong, which the Overview surveys, that were published before the handover were quickly outdated after July 1, 1997. Focused mainly on the political ramifications of the change of sovereignty, they tended to be narrowly framed and quite negative about the SAR's prospects. Many attacked Britain for its "betrayal." There seemed to be great need for a book that was unconstrained by the moment and its unknowns. Thus, we began to produce a book that would have the benefit of time following the handover and would be comprehensive, reflective, and perhaps lasting.

Examining imperialism and colonialism in Hong Kong for over a century and a half, Whither Hong Kong: China's Shadow or Visionary Gleam? identifies who and what were beneficial, humane, constructive, racist, avaricious, and autocratic. In pursuit of these goals, the Editor worked very closely with each contributor on content, style, and research, typically through five drafts. Since the handover several years ago, the new SAR's administration has revealed itself, China's leadership has changed somewhat, Sino-American relations continue in fits and starts, and Hong Kong and East Asia have fallen into serious recession.

Yes, whither the course of Hong Kong. Those of us who know the place well and appreciate its past and potentials wonder, Will its finest days come in the new century or will the vision and dream fade into the shadows of its past?

Carol Jones' critique is not only the longest review any of my ten books has received but the most affected and disapproving. To Jones, "the collection disappoints. It is an eclectic, often chaotic, assemblage of essays of varying quality that jump about from year to year and topic to topic in no discernible order." Her opening paragraphs set the confrontational tone by generally condemning "scattered and unfocused memoirs drafted in stuffy colonial drawing rooms." Uncompromisingly branding the expatriate scholarship on Hong Kong published by the Royal Asiatic Society as "orientalist," she in various places describes either parts of Whither Hong Kong? or the whole as nothing more than a "motley collection" of "old friends sitting around the campfire reminiscing about the 'old days' in Hong Kong," a "hagiography," as "lacking any theory or conceptual framework," and as wanting an engagement...