Introduction

The introductory chapter shows the relevance of studying former discourses on the future of Hong Kong (both in Chinese and Taiwanese media accounts) in view of the latest political developments in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It explains how the comparative analysis of Chinese and Taiwanese media accounts about the Hong Kong handover in 1997 reveals a ‘struggle over meaning’, and positions this struggle within the larger context of an emerging power that is seeking its ‘discourse right’ to ‘tell China's story well’. Besides revealing the overall purpose of the research and the structure of the book, it presents the rationale for the choice of English-language media both in Taiwan and China and explains why returning to the discourses of the 1990s can illuminate present-day conditions in Hong Kong (HK) and Taiwan. That decade not only marked a historical transition time for HK, but was of great importance for the democratization process in Taiwan.