A Review of the Consensus-building of One Country, Two Systems in the 1980s and 1990s

On the eve of the "decolonization" of Hong Kong, the idea of "One Country, Two Systems" is at the epicenter of political debate. How the idea shapes and is shaped by various political actors, including the Chinese state, the British state, and the democratic activists? How does the ever-evolving concept of "One Country, Two Systems" serve as both the means and ends of the state-building project, thereby structuring actions of the political actors? By addressing these questions, we explore the causes and processes of the consensus building of "One Country, Two Systems". The conventional wisdom has it that, "One Country, Two Systems" has been a site of contestation between the Beijing Regime, the colonial Hong Kong government and the pro-democracy camp, particularly after the 1989 Tiananmen Crackdown. The struggle and negotiation between the parties are therefore interpreted as a zerosum battle between a democratic and authoritarian governance. We, instead, argue that the process of consensus-building of "One Country, Two Systems", a legal framework that is of political, economic, diplomatic and ideological compromise, continued after the crackdown, an agreement not to be broken.