A-V4: Knowledge, Information, and Perception Across the Hong Kong-China Border

Virtual Organizer(s)

• 

  Denise Ho

  Yale University, United States

Virtual Chair(s)

• 

  Laikwan Pang

  The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Virtual Paper Presenter(s)

• 

  Denise Ho

  Yale University, United States
• YL

  Yi Lu

  Oxford University, United Kingdom
• PH

  Peter Hamilton

  Lingnan University, Hong Kong
• SV

  Sebastian Veg

  Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France

Virtual Discussant(s)

• TC

  Timothy Cheek

  University of British Columbia, Canada

Session Abstract: Scholars have long framed Hong Kong as a space between China and the world, often as a node of trade or as a site of political activism. Hong Kong’s historic role as a territory both apart from and intimately connected to mainland China has made it an experimental city, with residents on both sides leveraging its distinctiveness. These four papers examine the flow of ideas between Hong Kong and China. From the points of view of intelligence history, business history, intellectual history, and propaganda history, the papers explore Hong Kong as a contact zone for ideas about Chinese history and politics, management expertise, political reform, and Hong Kong society. Beginning with the 1950s, Louis Lu uses multiple government archives and foundation records to show how mainland publications were smuggled into Hong Kong, shaping Hong Kong’s knowledge institutions and in turn, intelligence information and area studies. Peter Hamilton continues Lu’s examination of the Cold War to study how Soviet, American, and new PRC management methods

competed for influence between China and Hong Kong. Sebastian Veg traces cross-border engagement between Hong Kong’s civil society and Chinese elite reformers in the lead up to the 1984 Joint Declaration, using diplomatic archives and unofficial sources to reconstruct their arguments for political reforms for both societies. Finally, Denise Ho reads Bao’an County newspapers and media from Shenzhen’s Special Economic Zone to explore the tension between Hong Kong as a site of desire and emulation and Hong Kong as an example of critique and repudiation.

Presentations:

• Views Across the Shenzhen River: Portraying Hong Kong in Shenzhen's Special Economic Zone
  

  Virtual Paper Presenter: Denise Y. Ho – Yale University
• Spies and Scholars: Hong Kong and the Study of Contemporary China
  

  Virtual Paper Presenter: Yi Lu – Oxford University
• Efficiency as Weapon: 'Scientific' Management in Early Cold War Hong Kong
  

  Virtual Paper Presenter: Peter Hamilton – Lingnan University
• Cross-border Discussions About Hong Kong's (and China's) Future: Political Reforms, “Democratic Reunification,” and the Role of Civil Society
  

  Virtual Paper Presenter: Sebastian Veg – Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales