HONG-KONG EMBATTLED DEMOCRACY - PERSPECTIVES FROM EAST-ASIAN NIES

This article examines the origins and development Hong Kong's embattle d democracy. It seeks to explain why, although flong Kong has already acquired most of the ''prerequisites'' for democratization, its democr acy has been so restricted and contested compared to those in the East Asian newly industrialized economies (NIEs). It also argues that Hong Kong possesses much less favorable structural conditions for democrat ization than its East Asian neighbors because it has a stronger conser vative alliance of state and Big Business on the one hand, and a weake r populist alliance of service professionals and grass-roots populatio n on the other. However the Tiananmen incident of June 1989 revitalize d the Hong Kong democracy project almost overnight, and now that the d emocrats have been strengthened, they have been able to contest the ru les of restricted democracy as imposed by the conservative alliance of Beijing and Big Business.