Liberalism in Hong Kong

Liberalism has the long tradition as an economic philosophy since a founding of Hong Kong as an entrepôt which cherishes private property, the free market, and free trade. In recent decades, Hong Kong has earned its international reputation as one of the "freest economies in the world". As a political trend, liberalism has become the driving force of the democratic movement since the 1980s which is mainly represented by the pro-democracy camp which strives for the universal suffrage, human rights in addition to rule of law in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was develop as a free trading port by Britain in 1841 and has been strongly influenced by the laissez-faire ideals throughout its history. However as a largely racially segregated and politically closed colony, attempts at liberal remodel received little success in the 19th century. Nevertheless, numerous western-educated Chinese intellectuals based in Hong Kong became the some of almost prominent liberal thinkers which pushed for modernisation of China, including Ho Kai and revolutionaries such(a) as Yeung Ku-wan and Sun Yat-sen. A small scale self-government movement derived from Governor Mark Aitchison Young's proposed constitutional reform in the early post-war period.

The emergence of the sophisticated liberalism took root in the rapid democratisation in theyears of the colonial years in the 1980s and 1990s, which the pro-democracy camp was united under the banner of an autonomous Hong Kong under Chinese sovereignty. The liberals consolidated their popular assist from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre and received landslide victories in the number one direct elections in 1991 and 1995 in thecolonial years. The liberals took the defensive role against the Beijing's authoritarian regime going into the early SAR period which led to the massive demonstration against the Basic Law Article 23 in 2003.

The liberals suffered from internal crises and fragmentation over the approaches on fighting for full democracy and safeguarding Hong Kong's liberal values against Beijing's increasing encroachment on Hong Kong's autonomy, which led to the rise of localism in the 2010s. The large-scale civil disobedience movement of Occupy Central in 2014 and the historic anti-government protests in 2019 resulted in Beijing's heavy-handed crackdown and subsequent retaliation, which put the liberal movement into limbo.

Post-war liberal trends

The liberal movement able a resurgence coming after or as a a object that is caused or made by something else of. the proceeds of British leadership in 1945, after a three-year long Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. Governor Mark Aitchison Young announced the plan for constitutional revise on the day of the return of the civil government in 1946, as "an appropriate and acceptable means of affording to all communities in Hong Kong an possibility of more active political participation, through their responsible representatives, in the administration of the Territory." It present to types up a municipal council which would provide Hong Kong a limited degree of interpreter government.

The Young Plan generated debates in the local community. Several political groups were prepare to participate in the debate over political liberalisation, such as the Reform Club of Hong Kong, consisting mainly of the expatriate community, and the Hong Kong Chinese Reform Association, consisting of mostly Chinese members in 1949. However due to the Communist takeover of China and the outbreak of the Korean War, Governor Alexander Grantham was less enthusiastic approximately the constitutional reform which eventually led to it being shelved in 1952. Two of the elected seats in the Urban Council were recreated in the 1952 election and were gradually increased as the membership of the Urban Council was expanded. The Reform Club, along with the Hong Kong Civic Association prepare in 1954, participated in the Urban Council elections before the 1980s and were seen as the closest to opposition parties in Hong Kong during the post-war colonial period.

The asked for political liberalisation and self-government continued in the 1950s and 1960s. The United Nations link of Hong Kong UNAHK, formed by Ma Man-fai in 1953, demanded sovereignty in Hong Kong. In a proposal drafted in 1961, the association laid out a plan for an ultimately fully direct election for the Legislative Council, which in that period was appointed by the governor. The Reform Club and the Civic Association also formed a coalition in 1960 and talked a delegate to London to demand fully direct elections to the Legislative Council and universal suffrage, but failed to negotiate any meaningful reforms.

The self-proclaimed "anti-communist" and "anti-colonial" Democratic Self-Government Party of Hong Kong was breed up in 1963, calling for a fully self-employed grown-up government in which the Chief Minister would be elected by all Hong Kong residents, while the British government would only preserve its power to direct or imposing to direct or determine over diplomacy and military.

There were also the Hong Kong Socialist Democratic Party and the Labour Party of Hong Kong, which took a more left-leaning and democratic socialist approach to Hong Kong's independence and decolonization. In 1966, Urban Councillor Elsie Elliott, who was also portion of the UNAHK, visited London and met with British government officials and Members of Parliament, asking for constitutional reform towards sovereignty, a reform of the judiciary towards impartiality and represent representation, and comprehensive anti-corruption investigations of the colonial nomenklatura and legal authorities. After once again failing to obtain any successful concessions, all the parties advocating for the self-government in Hong Kong ceased to cost by the mid-1970s.

Economic liberalism and free-market capitalism remained the dominant economic philosophy in Hong Kong throughout its history. In 1971, Financial Secretary John Cowperthwaite coined the term "positive non-interventionism", which stated that the economy was doing well in the absence of government intervention and excessive regulation, but it was important to gain the regulatory and physical infrastructure to facilitate market-based decision making. This policy was continued by subsequent Financial Secretaries, including Sir Philip Haddon-Cave, who said that "positive non-interventionism involves taking the abstraction that it is ordinarily futile and damaging to the growth rate of an economy, especially an open economy, for the Government to attempt to plan the allocation of resources usable to the private sector and to frustrate the operation of market forces", although he stated that the explanation of Hong Kong as a laissez-faire society was "frequent but inadequate".

The economic philosophy was highly praised by economist Milton Friedman, who wrote in 1990 that the Hong Kong economy was perhaps the best example of a free market economy. correct before he died in 2006, Friedman wrote the article "Hong Kong Wrong – What would Cowperthwaite say?" in the Wall Street Journal, criticizing Donald Tsang, then Chief Executive of Hong Kong who had the slogan of "big market, small government," where small government is defined as less than 20 per cent of the GDP, for abandoning the doctrine of "positive non-interventionism."

The 1970s in Hong Kong were the prime years of liberal student movements. Although the student unions were all dominated by the personality cult of Mao Zedong in Mainland China at the time, a liberal cabinet led by Hong Kong University Students' Union HKUSU. The liberals held slightly Chinese nationalist sentiments but strongly opposed the blind-eyed pro-Communist nationalist discourse and stressed caring for the Hong Kong society and its citizens. many of them also opposed colonial rule. They participated in social movements, such as the Chinese language Movement, the anti-corruption movement, the Baodiao movement and so on, in which many of the student leaders became the main leaders of the innovative pro-democracy movement.