New Edited Book by Kevin Tan & Michael Ng: Constitutional Foundings in Northeast Asia (Hart Publishing)

Constitutional Foundings in Northeast Asia
Editors: Kevin Tan & Michael Ng
Hart Publishing
Published in December 2021

Book Description: This new book in the Constitutionalism in Asia series considers the idea of origins, and of change and continuity in terms of 'constitution-making', which is an on-going process in the Northeast Asian states. The book examines the drafting, nature, core values, and roles of the first modern constitutions during the founding of the 8 modern states/territories in Northeast Asia: China (1949), Taiwan (1947), Hong Kong SAR (1997), Macau SAR (1999), Japan (1889), North Korea (1948 and 1972), South Korea (1948), and Mongolia (1924). The collection provides:

• an exploratory description of the process and substantive inputs in the making of the first constitutions of these nations/territories;
• analysis of the internal and external (including intra-regional) forces surrounding the making of these constitutions; and
• theoretical construction of models to conceptualise the nature and role of the first constitutions (including constituent documents) in the founding of the modern nation-states/territories and their subsequent impact on state-building in the region.

HKU contributors to the collection include Dr Humphrey Ko (ch 2), Professor Albert Chen (ch 3) and Dr Michael Ng (Ch 3).

New Book: The Making of the Modern Chinese State (Humphrey Ko)

The Making of the Modern Chinese State
Humphrey Ko
Palgrave Macmillan
2016, 258 pp.

Description: This text addresses the corporate causes of the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the emergence of modern Republican China. Weaving together political, legal and business histories, it focuses on the key relationship between China, cement and corporations, and demonstrates how the particular circumstances of cement manufacturing in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China serve to illuminate key aspects of Chinese political economy and illustrate the importance of legal frameworks in the emergence of industrial enterprises. Examining the centrality of legal personality in China’s historical story, seen from the angle of cement manufacturing corporations, it offers an alternative historical perspective on the making of the modern Chinese States and delves into the involvement of larger-than-life historical figures of modern China such as Yuan Shikai, Chiang Kai-shek and the revolutionary and the father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen, in the unfolding of these events.