Conservatism in Hong Kong has become the underlying ideology of the pro-Beijing camp, which has been the major supporting force of the SAR administration led by the Chief Executive. It is one of two major political ideologies of Hong Kong, with the other being liberalism. Since the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, conservatism has been characterised by business elites joining with pro-Communist traditional leftists in a united front to resist the rise of the demand for democratisation and liberalisation, in order to secure continued political stability and economic prosperity while maintaining a good relationship with the communist central government in Beijing leading up to and after the 1997 handover.
Historically, conservatism derives from the Chinese tradition of familism and Confucianism. These traditions were incorporated into the British colonial government's policies by Governor Cecil Clementi in the 1920s during the rise Marxism–Leninism and communism more broadly. Anti-communist sentiment continued after the Second World War when waves of Chinese refugees fled to the colony as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) grew in mainland China in the renewed Chinese Civil War. At this time, conservatives supported the Republic of China (ROC), and were pro–Kuomintang (KMT). After the de facto end of the civil war and throughout the Cold War, Conservatives have also taken libertarian thoughts on economic policies. Before the 1980s, most conservatives held a strong anti-communist sentiment.
Early colonial period
Laissez-faireism As a British free port, the local elite of Chinese compradors leveraged Hong Kong's status as a gateway to the vast Chinese market. Hong Kong merchants took the leading role in investment and trading opportunities by serving as middlemen between Europeans and the indigenous population of China and Hong Kong. This relationship follows the principles of laissez-faire classical liberalism, which has since dominated the discourse of the economic philosophy of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong was previously rated the world's freest economy, a title bestowed on it by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, and was greatly admired by libertarian economist Milton Friedman.
Traditional conservatism
Hong Kong as a predominantly Chinese society has its own cultural conservatism based on Confucian teachings. The conservatism of the Chinese elites was protected under the British colonial rule in the early collaborative colonial regime between the Chinese elites and British colonialists. To facilitate its governance, the colonial government helped consolidate the gentry's power to preserve conservative cultural values in the wake of the progressivism of Chinese nationalism such as the 1919 May Fourth Movement and the subsequent New Culture Movement in the 1920s.
As Marxist and anti-imperialist movements grew stronger in China in the 1920s, Hong Kong Chinese elites sought refuge in traditional Chinese values and the British colonial government came to the defence of Chinese traditionalism. During the Canton–Hong Kong strike in 1925–26 directed by the Kuomintang government in Canton, Chinese elites, including Legislative Council unofficial members R. H. Kotewall and Shouson Chow, actively advised and helped coordinate counterstrike efforts. Kotewall also addressed Hong Kong Governor Cecil Clementi about the European inspectorate of the vernacular schools and emphasised the need for the colonial government to carefully monitor vernacular education, as the schools had become "breeding grounds for sedition". Clementi directly intervened in the Chinese-language curriculum, stressing Chinese traditional teachings and endorsing "the ethics of Confucianism which is, in China, probably the best antidote to the pernicious doctrines of Bolshevism, and is certainly the most powerful course..." In 1927, the University of Hong Kong established a Chinese department which helped form the Chinese curriculum to be used in Hong Kong schools. The conservative Chinese curriculum was reaffirmed in the 1950s when the colonial government appropriated Chinese traditionalism to counter Communist influences.
Post-war period Utilitarian familism Post-war Hong Kong saw an influx of refugees fleeing from the Chinese Communist Revolution. The resulting abundance of cheap labour contributed to Hong Kong's graduation to an advanced, high-income economy sustaining growth rates (in excess of 7 percent a year). Hong Kong industrialised rapidly from the mid-1950s to the 1990s when Hong Kong was dubbed one of the "Four Asian Tigers". To explain the "economic miracle", sociologist Lau Siu-kai deployed the concept of "utilitarian familism", which summarises the general attitudinal orientations that were manifest in the post-war Chinese immigrants whose materialism made them the ideal economic beings. For them, the utilitarian impulse was preceded by their attachment to traditional Chinese familistic values. The pre-conditional "minimally-integrated socio-political system" in the post-war colony where the polity and the society are seen as mutually secluded and the Hong Kong people were allegedly more interested in family than in politics, turning always to their familial relatives for help, instead of making demands on the government.
Positive non-interventionism
Fiscal conservatism is thought to have contributed to Hong Kong's 20th century economic success. In 1971, Financial Secretary John Cowperthwaite coined the term "positive non-interventionism", espousing low levels of government intervention and taxation, while at the same time providing regulatory and physical infrastructure designed to facilitate market-based decision making. The policy was continued by subsequent Financial Secretaries, including Sir Philip Haddon-Cave, who said that "positive non-interventionism involves taking the view that it is normally futile and damaging to the growth rate of an economy, particularly an open economy, for the Government to attempt to plan the allocation of resources available to the private sector and to frustrate the operation of market forces," although he stated that the description of Hong Kong as a laissez-faire society was "frequent but inadequate".
Milton Friedman wrote in 1990 that the Hong Kong economy was perhaps the best example of a free market economy. Shortly before his death in 2006, The Wall Street Journal published his "Hong Kong Wrong – What would Cowperthwaite say?" which criticised then Chief Executive Donald Tsang for having abandoned "positive non-interventionism" by defining "small government" as less than 20 per cent of GDP.
Fiscal conservatism has remained the dominant economic philosophy in Hong Kong throughout its history, enjoying different labels including "consensus capitalism" (Financial Secretary Hamish Macleod, 1991–95), "minimum intervention, maximum support" (Donald Tsang) and "proactive market enabler" (Antony Leung, early 2000s). The basic principle of fiscal conservatism was followed by Financial Secretary John Tsang from 2007 to 2017.
Anti-communism The mainland refugees in Hong Kong also consisted a sizeable number of the right-wing Nationalist (Kuomintang) soldiers and supporters, in which most of them held a strong anti-communist sentiment. In the 1950s and 60s, the Hong Kong society was divided into the pro-Communist left-wing and pro-Nationalist right-wing rivalry. In 1956, the Hong Kong local Kuomintang supporters attacked the Communists in Hong Kong which became the Hong Kong 1956 riots. 59 people were killed and 740 had been arrested, mainly for rioting and looting.
Conservative rural leaders, business elites, film production companies including the Shaw Brothers and Cathay Studios and the media, including Chinese newspapers Sing Tao Daily, Wah Kiu Yat Po and Kung Sheung Daily News and English newspaper South China Morning Post, also largely supported the British colonial government or the Kuomintang government in Taiwan until the 1980s. They joined hand in condemning the Hong Kong 1967 Leftist riots instigated by the pro-Communist elements in the colony. The New Asia College which was established in 1949 by a group of anti-communist mainland scholars including Ch'ien Mu and Tang Chun-i also attempted the promote the Confucian teachings and Chinese traditional values. The New Asia College was later incorporated into the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1963.
The Nationalist–Communist rivalry was also part of the broader picture of the Cold War. Besides funding the conservative Chinese cultural institutions such as the New Asia College and the Yale-China Association, the United States also encouraged and took advantage of the anti-Communist activities of the Kuomintang. During the 1950s, the Third Force was created by the Central Intelligence Agency as an anti-communist movement of Chinese, which posed a problem for the British authorities, who although ideologically aligned with the United States to keep Hong Kong non-Communist, had officially recognised the Chinese Communist regime in 1950 and were highly sensitive about provoking Beijing.
Run up to 1997
The 1980s: Rise of conservative bloc As the Sino-British negotiation for the Hong Kong sovereignty after 1997 began in the early 1980s, the business elites sought the way to maintain the status quo of Hong Kong. They initially supported the British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's efforts in insisting the validity of the Treaty of Nanking of 1842. However, Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese paramount leader insisted in restoring sovereignty in Hong Kong in 1997, but guaranteed the "capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years," which was later written in the Article 5 of the Hong Kong Basic Law.Wong, Yiu-chung. (2004). One Country, Two Systems in Crisis: Hong Kong's Transformation. Lexington Books. Hong Kong. .
Besides its "Old Left" Beijing loyalists in the colony which were represented by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU), the Communist authorities in Beijing also actively ally with the business elites, professionals and rural leaders, who were used to be seen as pro-Nationalists, as part of their "United Front" strategy. Many tycoons and professionals were appointed to various bodies such as the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee (BLDC) and Basic Law Consultative Committee (BLCC) to draft the future mini-constitution of Hong Kong. In the wake of the rise of the liberal lobby which demanded a faster democratisation, the conservative bloc formed the Business and Professional Group of the Basic Law Consultative Committee and the Group of 89 led by tycoon Vincent Lo in 1986 to counter the liberal movement.
The business elites were concerned about the potential tax increases which might have been introduced by a democratic legislature to fund an expansion of the social budget, fiscal conservatism became an integral feature of the Basic Law, which writes the SAR "shall follow the principle of keeping the expenditure within the limits of revenues in drawing up its budget, and strive to achieve a fiscal balance, avoid deficits and keep the budget commensurate with the growth rate of its gross domestic product" as written in Article 107, reflecting Beijing's and business bloc's interest in having a politically and economically conservative Hong Kong.