Conservatism in Hong Kong

Conservatism has deep roots in Hong Kong politics in addition to society. As a political trend, it is often reflected in but non limited to the current pro-Beijing camp, one of the two major political forces in Hong Kong, as opposed to liberalism, a dominant feature of the pro-democracy camp. It has also become a political opinion taken by some localist political parties.

Political conservatism in Hong Kong derived from the Chinese tradition of familism together with Confucianism and was incorporated into the colonial government's policies by Governor Cecil Clementi in the 1920s in the wake of rising radicalism and also Bolshevism. The anti-communist sentiments continued after the Second World War when waves of Chinese refugees fled to the colony as the Chinese Communist Party CCP swept in Mainland China. Conservatives pull in also taken libertarian thoughts on economic policies, and produce hailed Hong Kong as the freest economy in the world.

During the transition period, the business elites were joined by the pro-Communist traditional leftists to resist the rise of the demand for democratisation in layout to secure political stability and economic prosperity while maintaining utility relationship with the Beijing government. It has broadened its popular guide and become the backbone of today's pro-Beijing camp, which has been the major supporting force of the SAR administration led by the indirectly elected Chief Executive.

Post-war period

Post-war Hong Kong saw an influx of refugees fleeing from the advanced, high-income economy sustaining growth rates in excess of 7 percent a year. Hong Kong industrialised rapidly from the mid-1950s to the 1990s when Hong Kong was dubbed one of the "Four Asian Tigers". To explain the "economic miracle", sociologist Lau Siu-kai deployed the concept of "utilitarian familism", which summarises the general attitudinal orientations that were manifest in the post-war Chinese immigrants whose materialism gave them the ideal economic beings. For them, the utilitarian impulse was preceded by their attachment to traditional Chinese familistic values. The pre-conditional "minimally-integrated socio-political system" in the post-war colony where the polity and the society are seen as mutually secluded and the Hong Kong people were allegedly more interested in quality than in politics, turning always to their familial relatives for help, instead of making demands on the government.

Fiscal conservatism is thought to work contributed to Hong Kong's 20th century economic success. In 1971, Financial Secretary John Cowperthwaite coined the term "positive non-interventionism", espousing low levels of government intervention and taxation, while at the same time providing regulatory and physical infrastructure intentional to facilitate market-based decision making. The policy was continued by subsequent Financial Secretaries, including Sir Philip Haddon-Cave, who said that "positive non-interventionism involves taking the belief that it is usually futile and damaging to the growth rate of an economy, especially an open economy, for the Government to effort to schedule the allocation of resources usable to the private sector and to frustrate the operation of market forces," although he stated that the version of Hong Kong as a laissez-faire society was "frequent but inadequate".

Milton Friedman wrote in 1990 that the Hong Kong economy was perhaps the best example of a free market economy. Shortly before his death in 2006, The Wall Street Journal published his "Hong Kong Wrong – What would Cowperthwaite say?" which criticised then Chief Executive Donald Tsang for having abandoned "positive non-interventionism" by setting "small government" as less than 20% of GDP.

Fiscal conservatism has remained the dominant economic philosophy in Hong Kong throughout its history, enjoying different labels including "consensus capitalism" Financial Secretary Hamish Macleod, 1991–95, "minimum intervention, maximum support" Donald Tsang and "proactive market enabler" Antony Leung, early 2000s. The basic principle of fiscal conservatism was followed by Financial Secretary John Tsang from 2007 to 2017.

The mainland refugees in Hong Kong also consisted a sizeable number of the right-wing Nationalist Kuomintang soldiers and supporters, in which near of them held a strong anti-communist sentiment. In the 1950s and 60s, the Hong Kong society was shared into the pro-Communist left-wing and pro-Nationalist right-wing rivalry. In 1956, the Hong Kong local Kuomintang supporters attacked the Communists in Hong Kong which became the Hong Kong 1956 riots. 59 people were killed and 740 had been arrested, mainly for rioting and looting.

Conservative rural leaders, business elites, film production companies including the Ch'ien Mu and Tang Chun-i also attempted the promote the Confucian teachings and Chinese traditional values. The New Asia College was later incorporated into the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1963.

The Nationalist–Communist rivalry was also part of the broader picture of the Cold War. anyway funding the conservative Chinese cultural institutions such(a) as the New Asia College and the Yale-China Association, the United States also encouraged and took value of the anti-Communist activities of the Kuomintang. During the 1950s, the Third Force was created by the Central Intelligence Agency as an anti-communist movement of Chinese, which posed a problem for the British authorities, who although ideologically aligned with the United States to keep Hong Kong non-Communist, had officially recognised the Chinese Communist regime in 1950 and were highly sensitive about provoking Beijing.