Made in Hong Kong : transpacific networks and a new history of globalization

Description

In this talk, I will discuss my recent book Made in Hong Kong: Transpacific Networks and a New History of Globalization (Columbia University Press, 2021). Made in Hong Kong delivers a new narrative of Hong Kong's economic evolution over the Cold War period. Drawing on primary sources from Hong Kong, mainland China, Britain, and the United States, I argue that Hong Kong's remarkable capitalist transformation between 1949 and 1997 must be understood through transpacific contexts and networks. In particular, the book explores the role of U.S.-oriented Chinese elites who fled to Hong Kong around 1949 and the ways in which they used their connections with the United States to advance personal agendas. Despite losing material possessions, these industrialists, bankers, academics, and other professionals used transpacific relationships to enmesh themselves and Hong Kong generally with the U.S. through both business and education. By the 1960s, the United States was Hong Kong's largest trading partnerand outside investor, while by the 1970s Hong Kong was the world's largest sender of foreign students to U.S. colleges and universities. Once mainland China's reforms accelerated, these networks positioned Hong Kong to become a crucial node for China's export-driven development and the linchpin of revived Sino-U.S. trade.

Period	7 Mar 2022
Held at	FACULTY OF ARTS
Degree of Recognition	Institutional