The Great Difference, The Great Rift, and The Great Need: The New Territories of Hong Kong and its People, Past and Present

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region includes Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula, and the New Territories. Largest in area, formerly entirely rural, but now heavily urbanized, the New Territories comprise two very disparate component groups: the descendants of the long-settled indigenous inhabitants whose ancestors had lived there for many centuries before this geographic part of Hong Kong was leased to Britain in 1898; and the rest, the great majority of its present residents, who have moved into the nine “new towns” built there since the 1960s. This article charts the changing tripartite relationship between the government of the territory, the indigenous residents, and the bulk of Hong Kong’s population up to and over the 1997 divide, and examines some long-standing issues which prevent a more harmonious future for all.