Hong Kong (English)

On July 1st 1997, China realized its long-standing ambition of resuming sovereignty over Hong Kong. Now the Communist Chinese leadership are dealing with their most public challenge: the enormous task of taking on a society which they both covet and fear, in the aftermath of the financial turmoil which overtook Asia in the fall of 1997. Hong Kong: China's New Colony tells the inside story of how the former British colony came under Chinese rule and how supposedly Communist China is coming to terms with presiding over what has been one of the world's most vibrant capitalist societies. It shows where real power lies in the new Hong Kong and describes in detail the wheeling and dealing which accompanied the establishment of the new order. Invaluable reading for anyone interested in the Far East, but especially for those who want to do business with the world's potentially biggest market, Hong Kong: China's New Colony answers all of these questions and more in a gripping and compulsively readable account of the future of this most unlikely of marriages. Stephen Vines is one of the best-known correspondents in Hong Kong, where he has lived for more than a decade. He is the Hong Kong correspondent for the Independent, founded a groundbreaking local paper, and broadcasts regularly for the BBC and other radio stations. He is the only Western journalist in Hong Kong to have successfully started a number of businesses with the Chinese, and certainly the only one to have had the Triads threaten him in his own shop. minimize