Book Review: Governing the Urban in China and India: Land Grabs, Slum Clearance, and War on Air Pollution by Xuefei Ren

China domestically and internationally on its approach towards one country, two systems. Nobody could have foreseen the meteoric pace of growth of China’s economy by the time Hong Kong’s future was resolved in the 1980s. Even the most far-sighted observers during the transition period could not have envisaged the threat of an unabated flow of consumers and tourists to Hong Kong and their disruptive impact on the local supply of services and goods, for example. The twists and turns of China’s marketization process were also beyond our imagination. While the majority did not expect China’s marketization trajectory to be a linear process, few foresaw the return of the statist approach from the late 1990s onwards. In the face of the threat of economic federalism in the domestic scene and the challenge of global financial crises, the party leadership has resumed its proclivity towards recentralization and control. The domination of mega state-controlled enterprise groups as the champions of the national economy today attests to the ‘return of the state’. The rise of a new king in Xi Jinping has simply reinforced the trend. The unprecedented economic power together with the renewal of the statist approach have altered the landscape where Hong Kong interacts and ‘bargains’ with the sovereign. The rapid rise of China has also met with a powerful pushback from the rest of world, and the Trump administration simply epitomized the general uneasiness with China’s ascendance. The siege mentality of ‘the world against us’ of the Chinese leaders, to a large extent, accounts for the overreaction to the ‘threat to national security’ emerging in Hong Kong. Sadly, the fate of Hong Kong has always been shaped by the logic of Chinese politics and the whims of the sovereign. The book however offers no pointers on how to move forward the important debate on putting one country, two systems back on the right track. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the general frustration and despondency of the local community with the current predicament and its distrust of the communist regime, the central message of the book remains too important to overlook. That is, despite all the noise about independence and overwhelming international concern, one country, two systems may still be the only option of institutional arrangement for Hong Kong in the foreseeable future. Like it or not, Hong Kong people have to find a way to make it work.