4: A Badly-needed New Airport Shelved: Infrastructure Development in Hong Kong under Changing China-Hong Kong-United Kingdom Relations, 1975-83

In 1975, a new airport, which was to replace the tiny and saturated Kai Tak Airport, was proposed by a consultant appointed by the Hong Kong Government. It was 25 years after a replacement airport project located next to the border was called off in 1950 due to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. In the second-half of the 1970s, having recovered quickly from the Oil Crisis, Hong Kong’s robust economy made such an expensive programme financially feasible. Meanwhile, the colonial government’s new approach to public finance and new geo-political condition were also conducive to a mega infrastructure project. Governor MacLehose, who was determined to transform the colony into a “model city”, was willing to borrow from the future to fund any badly-needed public work. With Sino-American rapprochement and the drastically improved China-UK relations since 1972, Hong Kong enjoyed an unprecedented socio-political calmness since 1941 and thus the colonial government had a freer hand to build Hong Kong. Nevertheless, in 1979, a British proposal for circumventing the 1997 deadline was firmly rejected by China. And the crisis of confidence on the future of Hong Kong ensued in the early 1980s. The panic over what would happen after 1997 heavily weakened the economy and it compelled the government to shelve the new airport scheme. This episode of the history exemplified how the repercussions of the awkward legal status of the colony outweighed a favourable geo-political climate and how they shaped urban development in Hong Kong.