THE MYTH OF POLITICAL APATHY IN HONG-KONG

While Hong Kong people are often characterized as politically apatheti c, closer study indicates that such descriptions need to be reconsider ed in light of Hong Kong's particular, and peculiar, history and futur e. The restraints of proximity to a soon-to-be-sovereign China and its position as a listening post, capitalist enclave, and refuge imposed psychological (internalized) and security-based (external) limits on f ormal democratic political development. Although there have been, and remain, vigorous structures of Chinese political influence and activit y, with Chinese Communist Party and Nationalist China partisans estima ted at some 60,000 in the early 1980s, political participation in colo nial politics remained Limited except for the village-based politics o f Heung Yee Kuk. In a process beginning in the early 1970s, however, t erritorywide political structures were erected that encouraged the gra ssroots activities that laid a foundation for rapid political developm ent in the 1980s and 1990s.