Hong Kong Takes Flight: Commercial Aviation and the Making of a Global Hub, 1930s–1998

Harvard East Asian Monographs #454

by John D. Wong

Commercial aviation took shape in Hong Kong as the city developed into a powerful economy. Rather than accepting air travel as an inevitability in the era of global mobility, John Wong argues that Hong Kong’s development into a regional and global airline hub was not preordained. By underscoring the shifting process through which this hub emerged, Hong Kong Takes Flight aims to describe globalization and global networks in the making. Viewing the globalization of the city through the prism of its airline industry, Wong examines how policymakers and businesses asserted themselves against international partners and competitors in a bid to accrue socioeconomic benefits, negotiated their interests in Hong Kong’s economic success, and articulated their expressions of modernity.

Genres: History

360 pages, Hardcover

Published September 27, 2022

Reviews

[Jim Gulley · Rating 3 out of 5]

During the post-WWII era, Hong Kong became a leading regional and global commercial aviation hub. Wong addresses the question of whether this development was organic or synthetic. What role, if any, did Hong Kong’s commercial airline industry play in the city’s evolution into a global economic power and/or in developmental state theory? The book supports its argument by using a case study of Cathay Pacific Airlines. The British conglomerate Swire acquired a controlling interest in CPA in 1948 and successfully managed its spectacular growth while battling regional and global competitors, negotiating complex geopolitical issues, and adapting to ever-changing market dynamics. The history of Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport serves as a parallel story of the tensions between the metropole, its Hong Kong colony, and resource allocation in the environment of a shrinking empire during the Cold War era.

[哈哈小姐 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid archive. Should be more interpretive of the sources. Almost read like a narrative history. All raw materials are transformed into digestible short sentences.

[L · Rating 3 out of 5]

內容翔實，爬梳資料得宜，但無甚有趣發現。錯字頗多，譯成中文生硬處亦見若干。