Acceso usuarios
Nelson K. Lee
This article investigates the making of Hong Kong’s water supply system since 1959. Itstarts by assessing the perspectives provided by the regime approach and the politicalecology literatures. The case of Hong Kong brings in ideas from border studies and drawsattention to the changing nature of the border to explain socio-ecological and scalinginteractions. The case study maps the border relationship between China and Hong Kong(and Britain), and the political tussle between them over the control of water supply to thecity in the late colonial period 1959–78, which resulted in the creation of a localizedself-sufficient water supply system in Hong Kong, and the consolidation of Hong Kong’sscale as a colonial city-state under British rule. It further explicates the change in thenature of the political border since 1979, and the processes by which Hong Kongabandoned attempts to strengthen its local supply, becoming dependent on supply from theregional Dongjiang water networks, as well as the transformation of its scale to becomea subordinate of the larger political unit in subsequent years
