Written by three academic specialists on Hong Kong cultural identity, social history, and mass media, this book explores the processes through which the people of Hong Kong are "learning to belong to a nation" by examining their relationship with the Chinese nation and state in the recent past, present, and future. It considers the complex meanings of and debates over national identity in Hong Kong over the past fifty years and especially during the last decade following Hong Kong’s return to China. It also places these arguments within a larger, global perspective, to ask what Hong Kong can teach us about national identity and its potential transformations.
Multidisciplinary in its approach, Hong Kong and China explores national identity in terms of theory, mass media, survey date, ethnography and history, and will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese history, cultural studies, and nationalism.
Gordon Mathews teaches in the Department of Anthropology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Eric Kit-wai Ma teaches in the School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Tai-lok Lui teaches in the Department of Sociology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.