Covert Colonialism

Mok's study looks at how Hong Kong was governed under British rule and how its political culture took shape between 1966 and 1997. Rather than relying mainly on theory, it is built on archival material and unofficial records held in London and Hong Kong, sources that earlier work has seldom fully used. Most previous studies came from political scientists and sociologists, and this book is written to fill the empirical gap they left.

The book joins a question that colonial historians have pushed to the centre of the field: how much colonial governance was shaped by the colonial state, and how far the colonial polity could act on its own. It focuses on the relationship between colonial authority and Chinese society in Hong Kong during a decisive stretch of its history.

Its comparisons invite readers to weigh Hong Kong against other former British colonies, and colonial Hong Kong against its post-colonial phase, asking what 'colonialism' meant across different places and periods.