Hong Kong as a dual periphery

The complications of the sociological notion of the periphery are possibly no better exemplified than by the unique case of Hong Kong. Hong Kong demonstrates that the periphery is not a static category and that the periphery can undergo major transitions in relation to a dominant center. In fact, Hong Kong reveals that the idea of the periphery is not without internal tensions and that something can be central in some respects and peripheral as a whole. Hong Kong is likewise distinctive in how its original peripheral significance to China contributed to its being a major center of exchange and a conduit of global system integration, whether it was initially as a port gateway for the West to China and, albeit unequally, of China to the West, and then a center of financial capital in Asia. The original Chinese concession of Hong Kong to the British in 1842 was a product of the period of global Western hegemony and the declining power of the millennial standing Chinese Imperial State, which was subject to both the pressures of internal decomposition and external interference, principally centered on trade and wars. Modern Hong Kong's origins, its subsequent history, and future cannot be effectively comprehended without considering the global, regional, and Chinese national developments. It would, however, be a significant mistake to underestimate the specific capacities that Hong Kong society and culture fostered, as well as its very substantial socio-economic divisions, in influencing this peripheral formation.