When Britain's 99-year lease on Hong Kong expired on 1 July 1997, Hong Kong was reunited with China. To effect a successful transition, Britain and China negotiated for years, each claiming to pursue the best interests of Hong Kong, but each in reality pursuing its own advantage. However, the passionate Hong Kong response to the Tiananmen Square incident forced the British and the Chinese to realize that the people of Hong Kong would no longer passively accept what another country determined was best for it.

Thus, China faces a great challenge: to preserve the prosperity and stability that Hong Kong has achieved under the British legacy of a free-enterprise system and an efficient but non-interfering government. China proposes to link its own traditionally socialist economy and communist political system with Hong Kong under a 'one country-two systems' plan. Cultural and historical forces suggest that this marriage of opposites may well succeed.

DAVID WEN-WEI CHANG is University Rosebush Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and former Senior Fulbright Visiting Professor at the People's University in Beijing, China, 1992-93. He was previously a Visiting Professor at Cheng-Chi University in Taiwan. He has published four books and numerous chapter contributions, and his research and teaching concentrate on modern China.

RICHARD Y.CHUANG is Professor Political Science at the Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota, and Fulbright Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, China, 1996-97. He was formerly Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Northern State University, Sasakawa Fellow, Bush Fellow at Harvard University's Institute for Educational Management, and Scholar at the US Department of State. He is the author of The International Air Transport Association: a Case Study of a Quasi-Governmental Organization.