Shanzheng (善政) and gongde (公德): moral regulation and narratives of ‘good government’ in colonial Hong Kong

Abstract

While ‘good government’ has long been hailed as a defining feature of colonial Hong Kong, this paper argues that it should be seen as an epistemological ordering frame whose existence relied upon constant processes of moralization undertaken by many actors across multiple scales. Central to this was the invocation of certain ways of thinking about the roles of government and citizens implicit in Chinese historical experience. These moral constructs, transplanted and transformed within the colonial milieu, became central elements in the way many British officials and Chinese residents came to express themselves, and by doing so constituted themselves as governing subjects upholding colonial rule. To explore the role of these constructs in particular situated practices and broader strategies of colonial governance, this paper focuses on two case studies concerning the improvement of public health amidst growing threats of epidemics between 1900 and 1908. Although these efforts were not successful in containing the spread of diseases, the emphasis on self-help and revival of ‘local traditions’ for encouraging people to improve their neighborhoods helped engender a sense of pride and solidarity amongst the Chinese residents and propagated the idea that Hong Kong was an orderly, ‘civilized’ Chinese society superior to that of mainland China itself. Although both case studies are drawn from particular sites, it is clear that the initiation, implementation and effects of the projects were not confined to the local scale, but were tied to larger shifts in the forms of governance and emerging political discourses beyond Hong Kong. They thus highlight the ‘networks of multiple scales’ and the translocal processes through which competing conceptions of Hong Kong and its relations to the world were actively being constructed by different actors under colonial rule.