Hong Kong

A SMALL ISLAND and peninsula off the coast of China's Guangdong province, Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997. The motivation for colonization was to open Chinese markets further to British trade and to facilitate the spread of opium within China. A number of large business organizations that were founded in Hong Kong or nearby regions had their origins in this trade, and Hong Kong remains a center for illegal international distribution of opium produced in Yunnan Province and mainland southeast Asia.

For almost all the second half of 20th century, Hong Kong acted as an outpost of capitalism uncomfortably close to communist mainland China. While politically inconvenient to the Chinese Communist Party, Hong Kong was nevertheless extremely useful to many influential Chinese who found that “round-tripping” their commercial ventures through nameplate enterprises in Hong Kong served to legitimize them. Much of the capital flowing into Hong Kong evaded official channels in one way or another.

The official trade figures of Hong Kong, which were themselves extremely large, served to hide the significant market for smuggling, which was active in all the markets in which mainland Chinese bought Western goods and those areas, such as rare animal parts for medicinal purposes, for which China could supply Hong Kong. There have been some suspicions more recently that Hong Kong banks, among others, have been the recipients of[Page 402] funds illegally gathered by corrupt mainland officials. More generally, the process of underground banking, which has historically been of great importance to ethnic Chinese communities, is also believed to be widespread in Hong Kong.

The huge contrast between living conditions in Hong Kong and the mainland served to inspire many millions of Chinese to migrate to Hong Kong, often illegally, to seek their fortunes. Inevitably, the treatment they received as invisible workers varied considerably depending on the nature of their employers. Many more people were lured into the sex industry and domestic service, where they had poor access to the law in case of improper treatment. The sex industry was closely connected to organized crime groups and these were believed to maintain their freedom through bribery of officials.

The takeover of Hong Kong by the communist mainland suggests there is a danger of the suppression of the media and their ability to report crime. The danger of false reporting of information by politicized mainland sources was demonstrated during the SARS disease crisis of 2003 when accurate counts of victims were temporarily unavailable.