Loh's "Hong Kong: Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place" (Introduction by Richard Cullen)

HONG KONG: CAUGHT BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

by Christine Loh

Introduction by Richard Cullen

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I have been invited to write a short introduction to this new essay by Christine Loh.

I first enjoyed the benefit of engaging in public policy discussions with Christine Loh over 26 years ago, when she was still a very active LegCo Member. After she left LegCo and co-founded the Civic Exchange think tank in 2000, we collaborated on a range of research and writing projects, one of which included an extended review of the new Accountability System introduced by the first Chief Executive of the HKSAR, Tung, Chee-hwa.

More recently we have co-authored two short, related books: No Third Person (Abbreviated Press, Hong Kong, 2018) and Hong Kong in China: Rethinking Mainland-Hong Kong Relations (City University of Hing Kong Press, Hong Kong, 2021) in Chinese (translated by Lei Weijie). The latter book, which contains an instructive Preface by Professor Albert Chen, Hung-yee, provides an extended treatment of matters discussed in the earlier book. Both books argue, with some vigour, that Hong Kong maintains its unique advantages as a Special Administrative Region within China.

Christine Loh has now written the essay published below entitled:

HONG KONG CAUGHT BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

A shorter version of this work was originally written for LIMES, an Italian journal specializing in geopolitics, which is being translated for publication in Italian. It offers a thought-provoking narrative which reviews issues discussed in our two jointly-written books. But it goes well beyond this as it deftly reflects on developments in Hong Kong since 2019. A synoptic version of this essay has also been published in June 2023 by the Pearls and Irritations online journal in Australia (see: https://johnmenadue.com/hong-kong-living-on-the-fault-line/).