Finding the proper balance between central control and local autonomy is a perennial problem in the Chinese economy, and the Chinese fiscal system has undergone numerous changes in central-provincial revenue-sharing arrangements since the 1950s. In the post-Mao period, fiscal decentralization began in 1980 under the slogan of “cooking in separate kitchens” (fenzao chifan), and a series of reforms was implemented to put local governments increasingly on a self-financing basis. However, this attempt to revamp the financial interaction between the central and provincial governments has been made immensely more complicated by rapid changes in the fiscal system and the shifting composition of revenues and expenditures brought by economic reform.

The 10 years of the “open policy” changed China dramatically. After it decided to join the world economy by expanding its exports and importing technology, funds and management skills to bring to fruition the historic goal of modernizing China, it opened itself as well to new forces in the international system. But while most studies of China's growing foreign trade sector emphasize its impact on China's trading partners and the international economy, few studies have addressed the domestic impact of this decision to open up parts of the domestic economy to foreign trade and shift into a more “export-led” pattern of economic development.

U.S.-China relations experienced significant change during the Reagan administration. In contrast to the 1970s, when China criticized American “appeasement” of the Soviet Union and U.S.-Taiwan diplomatic relations, and to the early Reagan years, when China threatened to downgrade relations over American arms sales to Taiwan and badgered Washington on a host of lesser issues, relations were remarkably free from challenges to a developing and expanding relationship from late 1983 until the June 1989 massacre.

Hong Kong is a British colony. It will become, in 1997, a Special Administrative Region under the authority of the Central People's Government of China, i.e. a local government within a unitary state. Thus, Hong Kong is and will remain a dependent polity. In a situation of power dependence, the choice of the rulers of the hegemonic country who set the rules of the game is crucial for political change in the dominated polity.

The purpose of this article is to examine the role of constitutions in Hong Kong, the principal concern being the implications of the Basic Law which comes into effect in July 1997 as the constitution of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). In order to show the purpose and method of the Basic Law, I also examine the role of colonial constitutions in the territory.

Ethnic conflict remains surprisingly persistent throughout the world. The persistence is particularly surprising in socialist countries, where one might have thought that the narrowing of income gaps between all ethnic groups, the favoured investment projects in ethnic minority regions, the official emphasis on equal education and occupational opportunity (often in favour of minority groups), and affirmativeaction programmes to ensure that ethnic minorities were well-represented in national congress and official positions would have provided significant new contacts and created new relationships among ethnic groups.