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History has many untold stories. In Rats, Cats, Rogues, and Heroes the author provides glimpses into China’s hidden past through the native’s point of view. Rather than simply writing about ordinary people, this book is written from the perspective of ordinary people, how they told their own stories about themselves, their communities, and their pasts. The author examines historical consciousness as revealed in people’s everyday lives and as expressed through customary rituals, sociocultural conventions, language, and the complex symbolism of common human experiences. The focus is on ethnic groups and individuals who have been routinely discriminated against in mainstream society and t...
What happens when language wars are not about hurling insults or quibbling over meanings, but are waged in the physical sounds and shapes of language itself? Native and foreign speakers, mother tongues and national languages, have jostled for distinction throughout the modern period. The fight for global dominance between the English and Chinese languages opens into historical battles over the control of the medium through standardization, technology, bilingualism, pronunciation, and literature in the Sinophone world. Encounters between global languages, as well as the internal tensions between Mandarin and other Chinese dialects, present a dynamic, interconnected picture of languages on the...
Essays examine the relationship between Hong Kong and China.
The world economic landscape has experienced seismic changes in the fifteen years after restoration of sovereignty over Hong Kong from Britain to China. Fortunately the Hong Kong economy has remained steadfast and is still making progress, but public confidence in the governance of the SAR government has declined, and economic and social dissatisfaction have flared. Where should Hong Kong go from here in the face of all kinds of contradictions? Economist Yue Chim Richard Wong provides an analysis of the origins of these contradictions and shares his insights on these issues. All those concerned about Hong Kong’s future should not miss this collection of essays.
Hong Kong is among the richest cities in the world. Yet over the past 15 years, living conditions for the average family have deteriorated despite a robust economy, ample budget surpluses, and record labour productivity. Successive governments have been reluctant to invest in services for the elderly, the disabled, the long-term sick, and the poor, while education has become more elitist. The political system has helped to entrench a mistaken consensus that social spending is a threat to financial stability and economic prosperity. In this trenchant attack on government mismanagement, Leo Goodstadt traces how officials have created a ‘new poverty’ in Hong Kong and argues that their misgu...
Between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, Qing rulers, officials, and scholars fused diverse, fragmented perceptions of foreign territory into one integrated worldview. In the same period, a single "foreign" policy emerged as an alternative to the many localized "frontier" policies hitherto pursued on the coast, in Xinjiang, and in Tibet. By unraveling Chinese, Manchu, and British sources to reveal the information networks used by the Qing empire to gather intelligence about its emerging rival, British India, this book explores China's altered understanding of its place in a global context. Far from being hobbled by a Sinocentric worldview, Qing China's officials and scholars paid close attention to foreign affairs. To meet the growing British threat, they adapted institutional practices and geopolitical assumptions to coordinate a response across their maritime and inland borderlands. In time, the new and more active response to Western imperialism built on this foundation reshaped not only China's diplomacy but also the internal relationship between Beijing and its frontiers.
The return of Hong Kong to China in July 1997 has the potential to benefit China's rapidly expanding economy. China's handling of the transition will have enormous implications for her international standing. This is the first study to analyse the serious problems and real opportunities that the return of the colony poses to China's international status. Examining the relationships between Greater China, Hong Kong and the West, Hong Kong: China's Challenge explores the challenges that Chinese policy makers face up to 1997 and beyond: the clash of political cultures; handling problematic negotiations; dealing with conflicting economic interests. The book concludes by suggesting that a laissez faire approach to the lucrative Hong Kong markets will ensure that China harnesses the full political and economic benefits of sovereignty over the colony.
The transition of the Churches from the traditional colonial setting of Hong Kong in the aftermath of World War II to the mature Christian community of post-industrial, post-colonial Hong Kong is analysed with considerable skill by Beatrice Leung Kit-fun and Shun-hing Chan... The two authors add significantly to our understanding of the dilemmas which confronted not only the Churches in adjusting to the transition from British rule but the wider community as well. The book gave detailed account of Hong Kong's church-state relationship in metamorphosis. It should be an important text for students in both political science and China studies, and especially in the history of Hong Kong. A timely...
In his book War Finance and Logistics in Late Imperial China, Ulrich Theobald shows how the Qing dynasty (1644 – 1911) overcame the tyranny of logistics and successfully enlarged the territory of its empire. A detailed analysis of the long and expensive second Jinchuan war (1771 – 1776) in Eastern Tibet demonstrates that the Chinese state ordered its civilian officials as well as the common people, merchant associations, and different ethnic groups to fulfil and to foot the bill for the “common cause”. With increasing military success the state gradually withdrew from its responsibilities, believing that a War Supply and Expenditure Code (Junxu zeli) might offset the decreasing skill in and readiness to imperial leadership.