For Hong Kong: “Twenty Years Down and Thirty to Go”
Abstract
This paper is a study of the concept of “One Country, Two Systems” as practiced by the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong after twenty years of Hong Kong’s reunification with the “motherland.” It addresses the question whether the phrase is an empty slogan or an economic and political reality. The paper delineates key elements of the Sino-British Joint Declaration which permitted Hong Kong to continue its capitalist system for the next fifty years, and points out important characteristics of both China’s and Hong Kong’s capitalist market relating to market capitalization, the stock market, the banking system, finance, and property ownership. It concludes by discussing several issues relating to U.S. China trade relations which may impede progress in the development of both China and Hong Kong in creating “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”