Abstract
This paper attempts to examine how the concepts of power, transparency and control are perceived in the life of ordinary Hong Kong people, and how the latter have been adapting to their perceptions and evaluations. The 2008 global financial tsunami and its aftermath will likely have a serious impact on their values. Hong Kong people’s experiences may in some ways represent those of modern men, especially those in East Asia. Democracy is premised on the ideal that life is meaningful through political participation. For most Hong Kong people, this is too demanding an ideal and they instead opt for economic power at the micro-level to secure an optimal measure of control over the socio-economic aspects of their own life. But even this objective has proven extremely difficult to fulfil because of the asymmetry in power between the individual on one hand, and authoritarian regimes, big businesses, organized interest groups, etc. on the other. Very often exit is not a viable option. There may be a tendency to seek satisfaction from religious pursuits, voluntary work, or other external agencies.
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Notes
Admittedly, most people in Hong Kong did not have the time and expertise to go through the bill in detail. But they certainly became concerned and worried when the legal profession, social workers, journalists, librarians, bankers, the Catholic Church and Christian churches, etc. came out to articulate their opposition. See Cheng [5].
The People’s Alliance for Democracy is mainly a coalition of the Democratic Party (with its base in Bangkok), the military, the crown and the civil service. One of its proposals was that popular representatives should be 70% nominated by certain occupational groups and 30% elected. See Storey and Lee [28, p. 49].
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Cheng, J.Y.S. Power, Transparency and Control: Hong Kong People’s Adaptations to Life. Int J Semiot Law 24, 163–177 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-010-9208-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-010-9208-3