Abstract
Civil service neutrality in Hong Kong is a myth. But it is a myth to which the principal players in the transition to Chinese sovereignty find it in their interests to subscribe. The British and Hong Kong governments see civil service neutrality as a bulwark of the territory’s autonomy after 1997. The Chinese government finds the concept useful as a device to deflect criticism of its post-1997 policies for controlling Hong Kong and as an occasional weapon to attack British political intentions. And local civil servants and politicians cling to the hope that the neutrality of the civil service will serve as a guarantee of the status quo and prevent political interference in the service after the British leave. The central argument of this chapter is that civil service neutrality is realized only in very limited circumstances under the present regime and that it is unlikely to be maintained at all in the future.
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© 1996 the estate of the late Haile K. Asmerom
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Scott, I. (1996). Civil Service Neutrality in Hong Kong. In: Asmerom, H.K., Reis, E.P. (eds) Democratization and Bureaucratic Neutrality. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24808-7_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24808-7_14
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