Drawing on archival materials, Michael Ng challenges the widely accepted narrative that freedom of expression in Hong Kong is a legacy of British rule of law. Demonstrating that the media and schools were pervasively censored for much of the colonial period and only liberated at a very late stage of British rule, this book complicates our understanding of how Hong Kong came to be a city that championed free speech by the late 1990s. With extensive use of primary sources, the free press, freedom of speech and judicial independence are all revealed to be products of Britain's China strategy. Ng shows that, from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, Hong Kong's legal history was deeply affected by China's relations with world powers. Demonstrating that Hong Kong's freedoms drifted along waves of change in global politics, this book offers a new perspective on the British legal regime in Hong Kong.
Drawing on archival materials, Michael Ng challenges the widely accepted narrative that freedom of expression in Hong Kong is a legacy of British rule of law. Demonstrating that the media and schools were pervasively censored for much of the colonial period and only liberated at a very late stage of British rule, this book complicates our understanding of how Hong Kong came to be a city that championed free speech by the late 1990s. With extensive use of primary sources, the free press, freedom of speech and judicial independence are all revealed to be products of Britain's China strategy. Ng shows that, from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, Hong Kong's legal history was deeply affected by China's relations with world powers. Demonstrating that Hong Kong's freedoms drifted along waves of change in global politics, this book offers a new perspective on the British legal regime in Hong Kong.
This dissertation, "From Cold War Politics to Moral Regulation: Film Censorship in Colonial Hong Kong" by Shuk-man, Lee, 李淑敏, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Through the case of film censorship in Hong Kong from the late 1940s to the 1970s, this thesis explores the local impact of the international Cold War. It argues that Cold War politics shaped the nature of local policy. The first chapter investigates the reasons for the rise of film censorship in the late 1940s and the 1950s. It argues that three levels of Cold War tensions led the Hong Kong government to focus on political censorship. Tensions within the British Empire, between the Hong Kong government and foreign governments, and those between local communists and the Hong Kong government led censors to target communist films, foreign governments' official films, and films echoing local political events. Among these films, those from China remained the primary target. During the period of political censorship, the Hong Kong government ignored the needs of local viewers and focused on reacting to external forces. The second chapter examines how in the 1960s local communists launched two campaigns against the suppression of Chinese films. It argues that the campaigns in 1965 and 1967 showed the influence of the Cold War, as these communists threatened the Hong Kong government that continued suppression of Chinese films would worsen Sino--‐‑British relations. It explains why the 1965 campaign succeeded in forcing the government to adjust its policy towards Chinese films but the one in 1967 did not. Since the late 1960s, Cold War tensions had been easing, particularly between China and Britain. The importance of political censorship and the external aspects of film censorship in Hong Kong started to diminish. Setting the stage for the localisation of film censorship in the 1970s, Chapter Three explores another duty of film censors in the 1960s, to examine sex and violence. By studying the debates about film classification and the censorship of the local film Death Valley (Duanhungu 斷魂⾕谷), this chapter argues that the government did not understand the goals of moral censorship even after examining films for more than twenty years. And it still did not sincerely engage with the Chinese population. The final chapter, on the 1970s, shows how the easing Cold War tensions directed the Hong Kong government to focus on moral censorship of films that was in accordance with the other social policies such as fighting prostitution and violent crime. Localisation of film censorship was followed by comprehensive reforms. The 1970s witnessed the government's first serious attempt to engage the Chinese public in censoring films. DOI: 10.5353/th_b5194736 Subjects: Motion pictures - Censorship - China - Hong Kong
The world was watching Hong Kong as its sovereignty was returned to China in 1997. Many predicted that it was the doomsday of press freedom in the city. Now, a decade after the handover, this book provides an up-to-date review of the dynamic relationship between media and political power in the post-handover years. It covers seven key issues including the mapping of the changing boundaries of press freedom, the impact of media ownership change on editorial stance, the development of national and hybrid identities, the tension between self-censorship and media professionalism, the rising importance of government public relations, the power and limits of hegemonic discourse, and the countervailing force posed by collective actions and public opinion. These studies combine to reveal how the media are transformed as power structure is reconfigured and how the media may act upon politics in exerting their roles as the people’s voice. The book will serve as a reference for anyone who is interested in the evolution of political communication in a transitional society.
Making full use of newly declassified material, extensive interviews and specific case studies, this book examines the Hong Kong media over a forty year period, focusing in particular on how its newspapers and TV stations have struggled for press freedom under the colonial British administration, as well as Chinese rule.
This book offers a perspective on the constitutional and administrative experiment that has been taking place in Hong Kong, based on a substantial period under Chinese rule.
