Liberalism in Hong Kong has become the driving force of the democratic movement since the 1980s which is mainly represented by the pro-democracy camp which strives for the universal suffrage, human rights and rule of law in Hong Kong. It is one of two major political ideologies of the Hong Kong, with the other being conservatism.
The emergence of the contemporary liberalism took root in the rapid democratisation in the final years of the colonial years in the 1980s and 1990s, which the pro-democracy camp was united under the banner of an autonomous Hong Kong under Chinese sovereignty. The liberals consolidated their popular support from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre and received landslide victories in the first direct elections in 1991 and 1995 in the final colonial years. The liberals took the defensive role against the Beijing's authoritarian regime going into the early SAR period which led to the massive demonstration against the Basic Law Article 23 in 2003.
The liberals suffered from internal crises and fragmentation over the approaches on fighting for full democracy and safeguarding Hong Kong's liberal values against Beijing's increasing encroachment on Hong Kong's autonomy, which led to the rise of localism in the 2010s. The large-scale civil disobedience movement of Occupy Central in 2014 and the historic anti-government protests in 2019 resulted in Beijing's heavy-handed crackdown and subsequent retaliation, which put the liberal movement into limbo.
Historically, liberalism has a long tradition as an economic philosophy since the founding of Hong Kong as an entrepôt which cherishes private property, the free market, and free trade. Since Hong Kong was established as a free trading port by Britain in 1841, it has been strongly influenced by the laissez-faire ideals throughout its history. However, as a largely racially segregated and politically closed colony, attempts at liberal reform received little success in the 19th century. Nevertheless, many western-educated Chinese intellectuals based in Hong Kong became the some of most prominent liberal thinkers which pushed for modernisation of China, including Ho Kai and revolutionaries such as Yeung Ku-wan and Sun Yat-sen. During the early post-war period, a small scale self-government movement had also derived from Governor Mark Aitchison Young's proposed constitutional reform.
Liberal roots in the 19th to early 20th century
Laissez-faire liberalism The cession of Hong Kong under the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 was overseen by then-British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston who demanded a commercial treaty that would put Sino-British trade relations on a satisfactory footing or the cession of a small island where the British opium traders could live under their own flag free from threats from the Chinese officials in Canton. Lord Palmerston was a prime figure of the Whig Party, which was the predecessor of the Liberal Party. The aims of the Opium War was to open up the Chinese market in the name of free trade. As the British free port of Hong Kong, taking advantage as the gateway to the vast Chinese market, Hong Kong merchants, the so-called compradors, had taken a leading role in investment and trading opportunities by serving as middlemen between the European and indigenous population in China and Hong Kong, in the principles of laissez-faire classical liberalism, which has since dominated the economic discourse of Hong Kong.
Sir John Bowring, the Governor of Hong Kong from 1854 to 1859 and a disciple of liberal philosopher Jeremy Bentham for instance was a chief campaigner of free trade at the time. He believed that "Jesus Christ is free trade and free trade is Jesus Christ." In 1858, Bowring proudly claimed that "Hong Kong presents another example of elasticity and potency of unrestricted commerce."
The free market tradition lasted throughout Hong Kong history, and the city was rated the world's freest economy for 25 years, from 1995 to 2020, a title bestowed on it by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, and was greatly admired by libertarian economist Milton Friedman.
Political liberalism
Compared to economic liberalism, political liberalism remained marginal in Hong Kong and did not gain much political influence. However, as the debate over Chinese modernisation got fiercer by the end of the 20th century, Hong Kong became the home of Chinese reformists and revolutionaries, namely Sir Ho Kai, who was inspired by classical liberal thinkers such as John Locke, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. He was an advocate of constitutional monarchy in China and a sympathiser of the revolutionary cause, along with his protégé, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who had studied in Hong Kong and had stated that he got the inspiration for his revolutionary and modernist ideas from Hong Kong.
One of the earliest revolutionary organisations, the Furen Literary Society, was set up in Hong Kong by Yeung Ku-wan in 1892. The society met in Pak Tsz Lane, in Central, Hong Kong, and released books and papers discussing the future of China and advocating the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of a democratic republic in China, priding themselves on the motto of "full-hearted patriotism" and striving for knowledge, inquiry and public awareness. The society was later merged into the Revive China Society secretly founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1894.
There were very few liberal reforms carried out by the colonial government towards the end of the 19th century. For instance, Sir John Bowring proposed that the elections to the Legislative Council should be based on property and not racial qualification. He believed that voting rights for the Chinese would "earn their support for the British government", which was strongly opposed by the local European community and the Colonial Office.
Sir John Pope Hennessy, the Governor of Hong Kong from 1877 to 1893, was a liberal-minded governor who attempted to tackle the problem of racial segregation in the colony, but had received stiff resistance within the colonial establishment for his radical agenda. Hennessy also proposed to abolish flogging as a form of punishment, which received widespread opposition from the European community, who even held a public protest meeting against his proposal.
There were sporadic voices for political liberalisation in Hong Kong during the late 19th and early 20th century. One of the examples was the Constitutional Reform Association of Hong Kong, which was formed by the expatriate British business community in 1917. Headed by Henry Pollock and P. H. Holyoak, it submitted a proposal of introducing unofficial majority within the Legislative Council to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, represented by member of parliament Colonel John Ward, but the proposal was ultimately rejected by the Colonial Office. Failing to obtain any meaningful success for their proposals, the Constitutional Reform Association ceased to exist by October 1923.
Post-war liberal trends
Young Plan
The liberal movement experienced a resurgence following the return of British rule in 1945, after a three-year long Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. Governor Mark Aitchison Young announced the plan for constitutional changes on the day of the return of the civil government in 1946, as "an appropriate and acceptable means of affording to all communities in Hong Kong an opportunity of more active political participation, through their responsible representatives, in the administration of the Territory." It proposed to set up a municipal council which would give Hong Kong a limited degree of representative government.
The Young Plan generated debates in the local community. Several political groups were set up to participate in the debate over political liberalisation, such as the Reform Club of Hong Kong, consisting mainly of the expatriate community, and the Hong Kong Chinese Reform Association, consisting of mostly Chinese members in 1949. However, due to the Communist takeover of China and the outbreak of the Korean War, Governor Alexander Grantham was less enthusiastic about the constitutional reform which eventually led to it being shelved in 1952. Two of the elected seats in the Urban Council were recreated in the 1952 election and were gradually increased as the membership of the Urban Council was expanded. The Reform Club, along with the Hong Kong Civic Association set up in 1954, participated in the Urban Council elections before the 1980s and were seen as the closest to opposition parties in Hong Kong during the post-war colonial period.
Self-government movement The call for political liberalisation and self-government continued in the 1950s and 1960s. The United Nations Association of Hong Kong (UNAHK), formed by Ma Man-fai in 1953, demanded sovereignty in Hong Kong. In a proposal drafted in 1961, the association laid out a plan for an ultimately fully direct election for the Legislative Council, which in that period was appointed by the governor. The Reform Club and the Civic Association also formed a coalition in 1960 and sent a delegate to London to demand fully direct elections to the Legislative Council and universal suffrage, but failed to negotiate any meaningful reforms.
The self-proclaimed "anti-communist" and "anti-colonial" Democratic Self-Government Party of Hong Kong was set up in 1963, calling for a fully independent government in which the Chief Minister would be elected by all Hong Kong residents, while the British government would only preserve its power over diplomacy and military.
There were also the Hong Kong Socialist Democratic Party and the Labour Party of Hong Kong, which took a more left-leaning and democratic socialist approach to Hong Kong's independence and decolonization.
In 1966, Urban Councillor Elsie Elliott, who was also member of the UNAHK, visited London and met with British government officials and Members of Parliament, asking for constitutional reform towards sovereignty, a reform of the judiciary towards impartiality and equal representation, and comprehensive anti-corruption investigations of the colonial nomenklatura and legal authorities. After once again failing to obtain any successful concessions, all the parties advocating for the self-government in Hong Kong ceased to exist by the mid-1970s.
Positive non-interventionism
Economic liberalism and free-market capitalism remained the dominant economic philosophy in Hong Kong throughout its history. In 1971, Financial Secretary John Cowperthwaite coined the term "positive non-interventionism", which stated that the economy was doing well in the absence of government intervention and excessive regulation, but it was important to create the regulatory and physical infrastructure to facilitate market-based decision making. This policy was continued by subsequent Financial Secretaries, including Sir Philip Haddon-Cave, who said that "positive non-interventionism involves taking the view that it is usually futile and damaging to the growth rate of an economy, particularly an open economy, for the Government to attempt to plan the allocation of resources available to the private sector and to frustrate the operation of market forces", although he stated that the description of Hong Kong as a laissez-faire society was "frequent but inadequate".
The economic philosophy was highly praised by economist Milton Friedman, who wrote in 1990 that the Hong Kong economy was perhaps the best example of a free market economy. Right before he died in 2006, Friedman wrote the article "Hong Kong Wrong – What would Cowperthwaite say?" in The Wall Street Journal, criticizing Donald Tsang, then Chief Executive of Hong Kong who had the slogan of "big market, small government," where small government is defined as less than 20 per cent of the GDP, for abandoning the doctrine of "positive non-interventionism."
1970s student movements