l********y
发帖数: 178 | 1 (It would take) 300 years of colonialism. In 100 years of colonialism, Hong
Kong has changed to what we see today. With China being so big, of course it
would require 300 years as a colony for it to be able to transform into how
Hong Kong is today. I have my doubts as to whether 300 years would be
enough.
---Xiaobo Liu, Open Magazine, November 1988
The above “300 years of colonialism” theory for China was actually
proposed by Xiaobo Liu, who was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. One year
later, today I still clearly remember how heated the debate among the
Chinese intellectuals about this Chinese dissident who is currently
incarcerated as a political prisoner since the moment when he was announced
to the only one Chinese Nobel winner on the afternoon of October 7th, 2010.
Xiaobo Liu was not well-known for ordinary Chinese (e.g. I even never heard
of this person) before. After told that this Nobel Peace Prize winner is the
person who wholeheartedly advocated “long-term colonialism”, it aroused
national outrage.
As majority of other Chinese, I can easily argue that India, as other
countries in Africa and South America, is still poor and underdeveloped
after a long-time Britain colony. However, at that time, I could NOT give
thoughtful answer that why Hong Kong developed so well, economically,
politically and socially, compared to other regions in Mainland China. Is
really it colonialism served as the most driving force for development and
advancement in Hong Kong. If so, why other colonial countries (e.g. South
Africa, Mexico, etc) could not develop as the countries such as Canada,
Austria, and New Zealand which successfully became developed countries. At
this sense, the historical comparative paper Colonialism and Development
written by Lange, Mahoney, and Hau is very compelling and informative. First
, the comparative perspective between Britain and Spain is insightful.
Although colonialism was widely prevalent throughout the world during the
past centuries, the “the causes and effects of levels of Spanish and
British colonialism” (p1416) are distinctive in two distinguished ideal-
typical economic models: the former is mercantilist model and the latter is
liberal model. Second, the explanation of Hong Kong as an exception to the
predicted pattern is very impressive. The author wisely pointed out that “
liberal Britain extensively colonized Hong Kong, despite the fact that Hong
Kong was a densely populated and highly complex society”(p1422) due to “
their strategic military and trade location”(p1429). By contrast, hybrid
colonialism was effectively implemented in India due to the spacious
geographic characteristics and complex social structures---“Indirect
colonialism was fused with direct colonialism in certain Asian and Pacific
colonies, including those too large to be easily controlled by a central
bureaucracy, such as India”(1427). From this point, the image that economic
prosperity and political liberty in Hong Kong Xiaobo Liu was dazzled by at
his first sight was hardly anticipated in China even after “300 year’s
colonialism”. Given the similar geographic and social characteristics,
hybrid colonialism rather than direct colonialism may be the best strategy
for Britain to control the whole China. Although the author attributed the
success of information technology industries in today’s India to the
corporate and effective central state administration, he also argued that
the social structure and power relations serving as intangible barriers
retarding to free market at the local level maintained unchanged. Conversely
, direct colonialism by Britain successfully transformed the previous
institutions and established “a rule of law and functioning market” in
Hong Kong, just as in USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The powerful
legal administrative institution that regulated commerce and markets could
not only effectively protect private property, but also “directly affected
the capacity of the state to provide public goods such as education, health
care, sanitation, and poverty relief”(p1445) and “indirectly affected
social development by shaping the ability of individuals to pursue their own
well- being ”(p1446).
Overall, for me, the comparative paper systematically provided an analytical
framework to, theoretically and empirically, effectively criticize and
invalidate the superficial argument Xiaobo Liu and his followers strongly
advocated. | r********n
发帖数: 7441 | 2 if you want to write a long paper, then sent it to a journal. otherwise, you
have to write in 3 lines to persuade others on bbs |
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