Behind the public face

If I had to pick just one word to describe the overall theme of the Chinese Communist Party's history here, I would choose 'contradiction'. While it was a historical shame for China to lose Hong Kong to Britain in the 19th century under a series of 'unequal treaties', a colonial territory at China's doorstep turned out to be extremely convenient.

From the time of the birth of the party in 1921, Hong Kong served as a very useful and fairly secure haven for party members and friends to stage revolutionary and political activities.

These included using Hong Kong as a communications and propaganda nerve centre, a fund-raising facility, an intelligence-gathering post and launch pad to the world. The colony was also a good place in terms of trade, loans, investments and gifts from compatriots.

Hong Kong's enormous usefulness to the party resulted in a high degree of tolerance for our existence. Indeed, the 'one country, two systems' principle sought to preserve the best of both worlds for Beijing - reunification under special arrangements that maintained Hong Kong's lifestyle and retained its prosperity as a separate administrative entity.

The contradiction still affects the status of the party in Hong Kong. A central question that lies at the core of my book is why the mighty Chinese Communist Party is an underground organisation here. After all, it is the undisputed ruling party. Why is it so coy?

The wider colonial background made a difference. After the second world war, the British introduced systems of personal registration, and registration of organisations and political groups in various parts of the empire. The goal was to block China's access to overseas Chinese communities so as to halt the spread of communist ideas.