This article restores early colonial Hong Kong to a key role in the history of capitalism and the... more This article restores early colonial Hong Kong to a key role in the history of capitalism and the integration of the Pacific. It argues that in the 1840s Hong Kong became the first identifiably capitalist Chinese society and a nexus between the China coast and both the expanding British and US imperial systems. It first demonstrates how Hong Kong's colonial regime swiftly restructured the island's social-property relations and scaffolded its residents toward the ceaseless accumulation of capital. It then examines how this nascent node of Chinese capitalism integrated with the westward expansion of American capitalism amid the California Gold Rush and concludes by analyzing how Hong Kong's transpacific networks facilitated the expansion of capitalist systems into late nineteenth-century China, most especially Shanghai.
This article reframes China's Reform Era by highlighting China's expanding ties to global capital... more This article reframes China's Reform Era by highlighting China's expanding ties to global capitalism through Hong Kong in the 1970s. It demonstrates that the British colony was a hub of commercial activities that were reconnecting the People's Republic of China (PRC) with the global economy before 1978, from renewed Sino-US trade and the importation of foreign technology to compensation trade ventures and the distribution of international publications. These activities and warming Sino-US relations convinced elite Hong Kong executives that substantial economic reforms were coming to the PRC. As a result, throughout the 1970s, the multinational corporate community connected with Hong Kong's American Chamber of Commerce actively prepared for future opportunities by studying the PRC's economic and legal systems and cultivating both PRC and US officials. The article concludes by showing how these pre-1978 activities molded China's post-1978 efforts to pursue export-driven development.
Round table reviews by four eminent scholars of Priscilla Roberts et al., eds., Hong Kong in the ... more Round table reviews by four eminent scholars of Priscilla Roberts et al., eds., Hong Kong in the Cold War (2016), plus author's response.
This article restores early colonial Hong Kong to a key role in the history of capitalism and the... more This article restores early colonial Hong Kong to a key role in the history of capitalism and the integration of the Pacific. It argues that in the 1840s Hong Kong became the first identifiably capitalist Chinese society and a nexus between the China coast and both the expanding British and US imperial systems. It first demonstrates how Hong Kong's colonial regime swiftly restructured the island's social-property relations and scaffolded its residents toward the ceaseless accumulation of capital. It then examines how this nascent node of Chinese capitalism integrated with the westward expansion of American capitalism amid the California Gold Rush and concludes by analyzing how Hong Kong's transpacific networks facilitated the expansion of capitalist systems into late nineteenth-century China, most especially Shanghai.
This article reframes China's Reform Era by highlighting China's expanding ties to global capital... more This article reframes China's Reform Era by highlighting China's expanding ties to global capitalism through Hong Kong in the 1970s. It demonstrates that the British colony was a hub of commercial activities that were reconnecting the People's Republic of China (PRC) with the global economy before 1978, from renewed Sino-US trade and the importation of foreign technology to compensation trade ventures and the distribution of international publications. These activities and warming Sino-US relations convinced elite Hong Kong executives that substantial economic reforms were coming to the PRC. As a result, throughout the 1970s, the multinational corporate community connected with Hong Kong's American Chamber of Commerce actively prepared for future opportunities by studying the PRC's economic and legal systems and cultivating both PRC and US officials. The article concludes by showing how these pre-1978 activities molded China's post-1978 efforts to pursue export-driven development.
Round table reviews by four eminent scholars of Priscilla Roberts et al., eds., Hong Kong in the ... more Round table reviews by four eminent scholars of Priscilla Roberts et al., eds., Hong Kong in the Cold War (2016), plus author's response.
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