As Acemoglu and Robinson (2019) argue, the state and society must balance each other: and as the one becomes stronger, so must the other, for liberty and wellbeing to flourish.8 What this tells us is that we should always assess the quality of the ‘norms’, the value of the capital built by community relationships, and determine whether the right balance and interplay between interpersonal networks and public institutions is in place.
According to the “Joint Declaration of the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the Question of Hong Kong” and “The Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China”, Hong Kong will become a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China from 1 July 1997.