Chinese State Capitalism and its Discontents in Hong Kong

YCAR is very pleased to present the fourth Bernard H. K. Luk Memorial Lecture in Hong Kong Studies with Ho-fung Hung, Johns Hopkins University.
Registration: https://yorku.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zPH-I3xcQNyoBVvMGjd1zw
Please register by 6 June 2021.
Discussants:
• Eliza Lee, Professor, Politics and Public Administration, University of Hong Kong
• Gregory Chin, Associate Professor, Politics, York University
Panellist: The Honourable Dr Vivienne Poy
Moderator: Yuk-Lin Renita Wong, Professor, School of Social Work, York University
Hong Kong’s political crisis today has been in the making for years, and it originates from the contradictions of the “One Country, Two Systems” arrangement. Hong Kong and mainland China have been two independent members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with different terms of membership. While China’s financial system is still semi-closed to the world, Hong Kong’s financial system is fully open. The US and other developed countries treat Hong Kong as a separate entity on export, investment and immigration control, offering Hong Kong-based companies free access to their market and technology, conditional upon the international recognition of Hong Kong’s autonomy from Beijing. This lures Chinese state companies to use Hong Kong as an offshore platform or springboard for capitalization, outward investment, RMB internationalization, and importation of sensitive technologies from Western countries. This results in the expansion of political influences of Chinese state companies and elites in Hong Kong, eroding Hong Kong’s autonomy and precipitating a social and political backlash, long before the 2047 expiration date of the One Country, Two Systems.
Ho-fung Hung is the Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy in the Department of Sociology and the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. He researches on global capitalist transformation, nationalism, social movements, and Chinese development. He is the author of the award-winning Protest with Chinese Characteristics (2011) and The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World (2015). His analyses of the Chinese political economy and Hong Kong politics have been featured or cited in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, BBC News, The Guardian, the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), among other publications.
A beloved teacher and colleague, Professor Bernard H. K. Luk (1946-2016) was an internationally recognized authority on the history of Hong Kong. This endowed lecture was created at York University in honour of his work. Organized by a group of Hong Kong scholars at the York Centre for Asian Research, the lectures and accompanying events focus on Hong Kong as a distinct society, its influence on the wider world or the experiences of the Hong Kong diaspora.
For more information: ycar@yorku.ca
Tickets: https://yorku.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zPH-I3xcQNyoBVvMGjd1zw.