Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and Strategic Relations: An International Journal (Jul 2017)

Hopes against Hobbes: On Authoritarianism, Regime Legitimation and Soft Power with a Review of Richard C. Bush’s Hong Kong in the Shadow of China: Living with the Leviathan (2016)

  • Emile Kok-Kheng Yeoh

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3, no. 2
pp. 889 – 987

Abstract

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Richard C. Bush’s Hong Kong in the shadow of China: Living with the Leviathan (2016) represents an important study on post-“Handover” Hong Kong focusing on the making of the 2014 Occupy Campaign and Umbrella Movement and the impact on the coming development in politics, governance and economy of Hong Kong, taking into consideration China’s Hong Kong policy and the response of the Hong Kong people as well as the perspectives of Taiwan and the United States. This article, while reviewing the book, also provides a detailed analysis of the wider implications of the issues the author of the book has raised as regards Hong Kong – as China’s policy approach towards Hong Kong and by extension Taiwan and the struggle of the Hong Kong people, as well as the Taiwan people, to protect the political freedom and democratic rights they aspire to maintain (in the case of Hong Kong) and that they have fought hard to secure (in Taiwan) have impacts that reach far beyond Hong Kong and Taiwan in the light of the PRC’s current relentless global projection, riding on the wave of her economic miracle, of her hard and so-called “soft” power in a through an intricate nexus of her domestic and foreign policies that not only serves to strengthen domestic governance and enhance international influence but also involves extraterritorial actions to maintain CCP’s one-party authoritarianism.

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