The re-making of developmental citizenship in post-handover Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

In the existing literature of citizenship studies, Hong Kong citizens are described as enterprising, depoliticized individuals. Such formulation, however, falls short in explaining the emergence and resilience of civil society activism from the mid-2000s, particularly the anti-extradition protests in 2019. This article re-examines Hong Kong’s citizenship in the post-handover era from the perspective of developmental politics. We argue that Hong Kong’s citizenship is the product of dynamic struggles between state and society over the city’s development. After 2003, the state was driving Hong Kong towards national integration with Mainland China, and the civil society was responding to such integration with resistance and antagonism. As a result, Hong Kong’s citizenship was politicized into highly contested forms of developmental citizenship. It remains uncertain as to whether and how Hong Kong’s citizenship can be transformed to reconcile the state-society tensions over the city’s future development.

KEYWORDS:

• Enterprising citizenship
• developmental citizenship
• national integration
• Hong Kong
• China

Acknowledgment

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on the Developmental Citizenship(s) in China, Seoul National University, October 2018. We thank Kyung-Sup Chang, all other conference participants as well as two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. The corresponding author would also like to thank Agnes Ku for inspiring discussions on citizenship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The other two contextual conditions are globalization and the battle between national unity and sociopolitical division. See Chang and Turner (2012).

2. Strictly speaking, Hong Kong is not a sovereign state, but, from 1997, a Special Administrative Region of China which enjoys a high degree of autonomy under the principle of ‘One Country, Two Systems’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James K. Wong

James K. Wong is Assistant Professor of Social Science Education in the Division of Social Science and the Division of Public Policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research revolves around democracy and citizen participation, politics of science, environment and sustainability, and political philosophy and public policy. He earned his PhD in Government from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2013. He is Fellow of the British Higher Education Academy.

Alvin Y. So

Alvin Y. So is Professor Emeritus in the Division of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.  His research interests include development, social class, and East Asian societies. His writings include:The Global Rise of China (with Yin-Wah CHU, Polity, 2016), Class and Class Conflict in Post-socialist China (World Scientific, 2013), and Hong Kong's Embattled Democracy (Johns Hopkins, 1999).