Chu Yiu-wai’s scientific contributions

The "one country, two systems" idea famously proposed by the late Deng Xiaoping maintains that within one socialist China there can be capitalist economic and political systems in special administrative regions such as Hong Kong and Macau. Shortly before the tenth anniversary of Hong Kong's reversion to China, Donald Tsang, the chief executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), claimed in "Hong Kong Letter - Just Because You Are Here", an open letter broadcast on Radio Television Hong Kong on 18 June 2007, that the ten years since 1997 had proved that the implementation of "one country, two systems" had been a success in Hong Kong. In the ceremony celebrating the tenth anniversary of Hong Kong's reunification with the motherland that was held on 1 July 2007, Chinese President Hu Jintao also highlighted the successful implementation of the "one country, two systems" concept and paid tribute to Deng for proposing it. Some might agree that "one country, two systems" is, in general, not just valued but practised in Hong Kong; but it comes with no guarantee of "one country, two cultures". While capitalist economic and political systems continue to operate in Hong Kong, its highly original and vigorous popular cultures, which were once widely consumed across Chinese communities, are generally agreed to have been in decline since 1997. The godfather of Cantopop, James Wong, among others, used 1997 to mark the demise of Cantopop (J. Wong, 2003). Cantopop was certainly not alone in its decline. Hong Kong cinema, the leading popular culture industry in Hong Kong, has faced similar problems since 1997. Over the past decade its popularity declined so drastically that local flm critics were moved to mourn the death of Hong Kong cinema. Back in 1995, the November issue of Ming Pao Monthly featured a special issue entitled "The Death of Hong Kong Cinema". If it was controversial in 1995 to argue that Hong Kong cinema had died, perhaps this was no longer the case in 2006. When compared to the HK$1.5 billion in boxoffice revenue in 1992, the mere$300 million in box-office takings of Hong Kong flms in 2006 (including Mainland-Hong Kong co-productions) is striking. And this decline in box-office revenue has had another effect on Hong Kong flms. Since 1997 the market share of local Hong Kong productions has been declining (with the market share of Hong Kong flms falling to 30 per cent in 2006), and the market has gradually been taken over by foreign-language films.