Property Law as (De)coloniality in British Hong Kong (1905-1941; 1945-1949)

Abstract

This thesis proposes the following arguments: Property law was used in British Hong Kong as a political tool to achieve a desired degree of coloniality or decoloniality in years before its reversion to communist China in 1997. Provision of land improvement opportunities in inter-war Repulse Bay in the 1920s promoted a trial set of values for the Chinese landed gentry such as the British would wish to see exhibited in a decolonized Hong Kong. These included equal availability of commercial opportunity to Chinese and British, abstinence from speculative practices regarding land and aloofness from mainland Chinese political causes. The racial balance of interwar land law in text and practice was the result of the liberality and cultural hybridity of its architect, Mr Philip Jacks. Hong Kong's future ability to function as an independent territorial entity can be thought to have rested on his racially balanced and politically neutral standards.