Tance Xianggang Guodu qianhou (Exploring Hong Kong's return to China), and: Jiuqiu hou Zhonggang di xin mianmao (The new face of China: Hong Kong after 1997) (review)

Reviews 195 In modern Chinese history, the line between soldier and civilian has rarely been a sharp one. McCord's warlords were drawn into politics by die legitimacy crisis and divided autiiority of the early Republic. Levich's Kwangsi soldier-politicians sought to create an island ofmodernization in a province that even today remains a backwater. Many ofLi's student nationalists wound up as cadres or officers in the Communist and Nationalist armies. Wou's rural Henan communists pursued an agenda that embraced both military security and social transformation . After 1949, on Taiwan and the mainland of China, Nationalists and Communists continued to wresde with the problem ofhow to incorporate soldiers into the rival party-states that were the legacy ofthe first half of the twentieth century in China. Steven I. Levine Boulder Run Research Steven I. Levine is Senior Research Associate at Boulder Run Research specializing in Chineseforeign policy. mi Frankie Fook-lun Leung. Tance Xianggang Guodu qianhou (Exploring Hong Kong's return to China). Hong Kong: Guangjiaojing Press, 1994. 287 pp. Paperback $15. 00, isbn 962-226-384-4. Frankie Fook-lun Leung. Jiuqiu hou Zhonggang di xin mianmao (The new face of China: Hong Kong after 1997). Hong Kong: Guangjiaojing Press, 1995. 211 pp. Paperback $18.00, isbn 962-226-396-8. With the countdown under way toward July 1, 1997, when China will regain sovereignty over Hong Kong, publications on the future of Hong Kong have become a fast-growth industry. Among the myriad tides on the subject, few deal with the important topic of the post-1997 legal system in Hong Kong, and even fewer are written by a trained legal scholar. The two volumes under review, both by Frankie F. L. Leung and both written in Chinese, are thus welcome contributions. The first monograph is a collection of essays written by the autiior over the© 1996 by University years and published in Shinbao (Hong Kong economicjournal) and Shinbao ofHawai'i Pressyuekan (Hong Kong economic journal monthly), two leading financial publications in Hong Kong, and arranged in five topical categories. The first, "Citizenship and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region," illuminates legal issues 196 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 1996 relating to citizenship on the Hong Kong passport and rights of abode in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. The second section on "Sino-British Relations" analyzes the respective bargaining strategies of China and the United Kingdom, evaluates die performance ofleading British and Hong Kong Chinese civil servants , and takes a retrospective glance at the poignant experiences of British diplomats during the Cultural Revolution in Beijing. The third section on "Equality before the Law" offers an insider's critique ofthe legal system, the legal profession , and legal education in the United States, the United Kingdom, and China. Though not focused on Hong Kong, two companion sections on "The Economies and Investment Strategies of China and the U.S." and "Chinese and Western Education" compare the laws on international trade and investment in China, die United States, Hong Kong, and Taiwan; introduce the financial wizardry of Templeton and Buffet, as well as Soros; and discourse on the policy choices and pedagogical similarities and differences between the American and Chinese educational systems. In his sequel The New Face ofChina: Hong Kong after 1997, the focus shifts to a discussion ofthe Chinese legal system, which takes up more than a third of the book. The twenty-five essays in this selection examine the quality ofjudges, lawyers , and law students in China; the Criminal Code and the Basic Law of Hong Kong; and the Hong Kong judicial system during the transition. Returning to two major themes in fhe 1994 book, the second section probes the problems of dealing with Chinese companies, resolving trade disputes, and managing cross-national and international investments, while a third section comments on the ambivalent political psychology of Hong Kong citizens, the uncertain status of Hong Kong civil servants during and after 1997, and the degree of media-friendliness of Chinese versus British officials. A last section on Hong Kong high school and college education completes the circle begun in the first book. While written largely for and at the level of...