From constitutional reform debates to the 2014 Umbrella Revolution, and from the 2016 Fishball Revolution to the growing voices of self-determination and independence, spotlights have been focused on Hong Kong politics in recent years. How can we understand Hong Kong's politics in a macro and historical perspective? What are the factors that have driven Hong Kong's contentious politics in recent years? What are the possible scenarios of Hong Kong's political future? From these perspectives, Peter W. Preston's highly readable book is a timely and comprehensive account of Hong Kong's political developments.

This book is divided into five major chapters. Chapter one (“Framing the debate: London, Beijing and Hong Kong”) frames the discussion of Hong Kong politics as forms of interaction between local elites and distant masters, i.e. London before 1997 and Beijing after 1997. Chapter two (“Hong Kong's historical trajectory”) traces the historical trajectory of Hong Kong from the founding of the colony to the post-war period. Chapter three (“After 1997: creating and embedding the new political settlement”) discusses the new pattern of political settlement after 1997, including the formal machineries of governance under the Basic Law, the relationship between local elites and local population, the formal authority of Beijing, and its presence in Hong Kong. Chapter four (“Popular politics”) discusses Hong Kong's popular politics by reviewing recent popular protest actions such as patriotic education curriculum demonstrations, protests again mainland mothers, tourists and parallel traders, and the 2014 Umbrella Movement. Chapter five (“Imagining routes to the future”) sketches out the different possible scenarios of Hong Kong's future political development including the continuation of its existing trajectory, the Singapore model, the deep integration with China, slow dissolve and rational authoritarianism.

Readers seeking new empirical insights and findings on Hong Kong politics may be disappointed with this book, as it offers little original research on the political dynamics of the city-state. The value of this volume lies in the author's novel interpretation and reinterpretation of Hong Kong politics within a framework of “local elites versus distant masters.” Preston argues that the major clue to understanding the nature and characteristics of Hong Kong politics is to examine “the ways in which local elite agents read and react to enfolding circumstances in order to sketch out a route to the future for the territory, where these circumstances include the intrusive demands of powerful external powers” (p. 4). By re-examining and reinterpreting Hong Kong's political trajectories from British colonial times to the Chinese SAR period, Preston argues that local elites successfully established and managed their working relationship with the distant master in London during the colonial time, therefore contributing to the prosperous development of the city-state into an important financial and business centre, while after 1997 local elites and local population still struggle in the process of creating and constructing a working relationship with their new distant master in Beijing. Apart from re-examining Hong Kong politics within a framework of “local elites versus distant masters,” Preston also cleverly describes the nature of the transfer of Hong Kong's sovereignty from Britain to China in 1997 as “transferred colonialism,” arguing that “authority has moved from one elite to another, both external to the place itself, and the territory's condition remains in essence the same: it was a colony, it is a colony” (p. 13).

While I agree very much with Preston's notions of “local elites versus distant masters” and “transferred colonialism,” it is important to point out that London and Beijing actually adopted very different strategies in governing Hong Kong. London was a “real distant master” because it adopted some forms of “indirect rule” relying on the governor to manage day-to-day affairs in the city-state and co-opting the local business-professional elites. Beijing, on the other hand, is “not really a distant master” because it directly engages itself in the co-option and making of the post-1997 governing elites and because it exerts stronger and stronger direct influence in Hong Kong politics through the Central Liaison Office (see Brian C. H. Fong [2014], “The partnership between the Chinese government and Hong Kong's capitalist class: implications for HKSAR governance, 1997–2012,” The China Quarterly 217, 195–220). In other words, while the frameworks of “local elites versus distant masters” and “transferred colonialism” are brilliant ideas for interpreting the nature of Hong Kong politics, these frameworks could help us know more if we did not just look at local elites' actions and responses but also at the distant masters' governing strategies and tactics.

All in all, this book does a valuable job in providing a concise account of Hong Kong politics from the British colonial times to the Chinese SAR period. Experienced researchers of Hong Kong politics will find this book illuminating while new readers of Hong Kong politics will find it a good and handy introductory text.