Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists: 1937-1997 by Cindy Chu Yik-yi Palgrave Macmillan HK$858
It's an open secret that Beijing has favoured Hong Kong's business sector since the Sino-British talks over the city's future in the early 1980s. The business elite constituted the majority of the Basic Law Drafting Committee which penned our mini-constitution and their call for a slower pace of democracy is often heeded by Beijing.
Cindy Chu's new book, which studies the activities of the Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong from 1937 to 1997, argues that Beijing's bias towards Hong Kong's capitalists has its roots in the 1930s. The communists set up the Office of the Eighth Route Army in Hong Kong in 1938 to promote its anti-Japanese cause and receive aid for its war campaign.
Liao Chengzhi, the senior party official who headed the office, cultivated ties with Hong Kong's businessmen and secured financial support for his communist newspaper from friends in the banking sector. Liao, who became the founding director of the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office in 1978, was the father of Liao Hui, who retired from the post last year.
The book details the mainland's 'united front' approach to Hong Kong's business elite after the second world war, particularly in the 1980s when business leaders emerged as the primary target of Beijing's work in the city.
Chu, a professor of history at Baptist University, argues that the communists were involved with Hong Kong's capitalists throughout the period during the 60 years before the handover. She points out that the Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong capitalists have worked together since 1937, much earlier than most journalists have previously mentioned.