The Changing Nature of Border, Scale and the Production of Hong Kong's Water Supply System since 1959

Abstract

This article investigates the making of Hong Kong's water supply system since 1959. It starts by assessing the perspectives provided by the regime approach and the political ecology literatures. The case of Hong Kong brings in ideas from border studies and draws attention to the changing nature of the border to explain socio-ecological and scaling interactions. The case study maps the border relationship between China and Hong Kong (and Britain), and the political tussle between them over the control of water supply to the city in the late colonial period 1959-78, which resulted in the creation of a localized self-sufficient water supply system in Hong Kong, and the consolidation of Hong Kong's scale as a colonial city-state under British rule. It further explicates the change in the nature of the political border since 1979, and the processes by which Hong Kong abandoned attempts to strengthen its local supply, becoming dependent on supply from the regional Dongjiang water networks, as well as the transformation of its scale to become a subordinate of the larger political unit in subsequent years.

Going out under the shadow of Red China: the geopolitical origin of Hong Kong’s international status

“…Recently, many have reconsidered how Cold War geopolitics influenced Hong Kong as well. To name a few, Lee (2014) explains that Hong Kong’s geopolitical vulnerability affected its development of an independent and local water supply system. Airriess (2005) investigates how colonial government-sponsored farming activities during the Cold War helped deter communist penetration and guaranteed the local food supply.…”

“…Consequently, a series of projects were planned by the colonial government to maintain the colony’s internal security, including expanding the water supply system and developing agricultural and fishing facilities, low-cost housing and a new (Chinese) university (Airriess, 2005; Lee, 2014; Mark, 2007; Smart, 2006; Wong, 2002). The aim was to neutralize the influence of (primarily) the CCP and the KMT forces in the colony by integrating the refugees into local colonial society.…”

“…Although the colonial government built a giant reservoir in Tai Lam Chung in 1957 and spent more than 10 percent of their public expenditure on water supply in the 1960s (e.g. the total public expenditure of the Hong Kong Government in the 1965/1966 financial year was HKD1,769.1m, of which 12.5 percent (HKD221.4m) was spent on water supply, see Lee, 2014), acute water shortages still occurred in the 1960s due to another wave of refugees’ influx in 1959 and a series of droughts (Hampton, 2016; Hong Kong Government, 1961; Lee, 2014). While the colonial government started to import water from the Shenzhen Reservoir in the early 1960s as a remedy, Governor Robert Black realized that over-reliance on Chinese water could undermine the Hong Kong Government’s authority and Hong Kong’s internal security, if the CCP attempted to pressure the colony by withholding water supply (Lee, 2014, p. 909).…”

“…the total public expenditure of the Hong Kong Government in the 1965/1966 financial year was HKD1,769.1m, of which 12.5 percent (HKD221.4m) was spent on water supply, see Lee, 2014), acute water shortages still occurred in the 1960s due to another wave of refugees’ influx in 1959 and a series of droughts (Hampton, 2016; Hong Kong Government, 1961; Lee, 2014). While the colonial government started to import water from the Shenzhen Reservoir in the early 1960s as a remedy, Governor Robert Black realized that over-reliance on Chinese water could undermine the Hong Kong Government’s authority and Hong Kong’s internal security, if the CCP attempted to pressure the colony by withholding water supply (Lee, 2014, p. 909). This worry was materialized during the 1967 riots when the colony’s water supply became “dangerously low” due to low rainfall levels, and the Guangdong authorities ignored the colonial government’s request to increase the water supply (The National Archive, UK (hereafter TNA), FCO40/103, May 16, 1968).…”

“…Nevertheless, it is of great value for political scientists to study through archives, which are primary sources “intended for internal or restricted circulation only” and “facts in themselves” (Burnham et al , 2004, p. 165). Recently, with the declassification of archival materials, a bunch of scholarly works on the politics of postwar Hong Kong has been produced (see Lee, 2014; Mark, 2000, 2004, 2007, 2014; Share, 2007; Smart, 2006, also see the following session). Their works inspire the authors to study lately declassified archival materials and provide invaluable insights into this research.…”