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Prof. Michael Ng

Professor

Associate Dean (Research and Institutional Advancement)

Affiliated Faculty, Department of History, HKU

LLB, PCLL (HKU)
MA, PhD (History, CUHK)
Solicitor and Certified Public Accountant (non-practising)
Fellow (Higher Education Academy)

Biography

Professor Michael Ng is a legal historian specializing in the legal history of modern China and Hong Kong. He is also interested in the business history of Chinese firms in mainland China and Hong Kong.

Professor Ng’s research monograph, Political Censorship in British Hong Kong: Freedom of Expression and the Law (1842–1997) (Cambridge), has won multiple international and national awards. It challenges the widely accepted narrative that freedom of expression in Hong Kong is a legacy of British rule of law, arguing instead that Hong Kong’s free press, freedom of speech, and judicial independence are products of Britain’s China strategy. He is also the author of Legal Transplantation in Early 20th Century China: Practicing Law in Republican Beijing (1910s–1930s) (Routledge), and co-editor of Chinese Legal Reform and the Global Legal Order: Adoption and Adaptation (Cambridge) and Constitutional Foundings in Northeast Asia (Hart). His work has appeared in leading international journals in both law and history, including Law and History Review, Modern Asian Studies, Business History Review, Law and Literature, International Journal of Asian Studies, and Cold War History, among others. Professor Ng has served as the elected Vice-President of the International Society for Chinese Law and History and held visiting appointments at the University of Cambridge, Tsinghua University, the University of Melbourne, the National University of Singapore, and National Taiwan University.

Prior to joining HKU in 2012, Professor Ng served in the legal and finance sectors for more than 15 years. As a solicitor, he specialized in corporate transactions. After leaving legal practice, he worked in a listed multinational corporation as its Chief Investment Officer and Finance Director, focusing on merger and acquisition transactions in Asia. He also managed a private equity fund as its Partner and Chief Financial Officer.

Professor Ng teaches corporate law and legal history at HKU’s Faculty of Law and Hong Kong history in HKU’s Department of History. He supervises PhD and MPhil students working on the legal history of modern China and colonial Asia.

Research Area

  • Legal History of China and Hong Kong
  • Business History of Chinese Firms


ORCID
HKU Scholar Hub
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ORCID
HKU Scholar Hub
Google Scholar

Research Area

  • Legal History of China and Hong Kong
  • Business History of Chinese Firms

Sole-authored Monographs

Edited Books

Knowledge -exchange Book

Journal Articles

Book Chapters

Book Reviews / Short Pieces

Grant, Award and Fellowship

Journal Editorship and Academic Society Management

Invited Talks/Conference Papers

  1. 噤若寒蟬：港英時代對媒體和言論的政治審查(1842-1997) (Joint Publishing HK 香港三聯, 2024) (Second best seller in 2024 of Joint Publishing HK)
  2. Political Censorship in British Hong Kong: Freedom of Expression and the Law (1842–1997) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022) (Awarded the Honorable Mention of The International Society for Chinese Law and History Biennial Book Prize 2024) (Book Review in Law and History Review: [link], Book Review in the China Quarterly: [link], Book Review in China Review: [link], Book Review in Asian J of Comp Law: [link])
  3. Legal Transplantation in Early Twentieth-Century China: Practicing law in Republican Beijing (1910s-1930s). New York, London: Routledge, 2014. (University Research Output Prize 2014-15) (Book Review: [link])
  4. Foreign Direct Investment in China – Theories and Practices. New York, London: Routledge, 2013.
  1. Constitutional Foundings in Northeast Asia (Oxford: Hart, 2021) (co-edited with Kevin Tan)
  2. 香港動盪: 法與治的歷史與文化解讀 (Chinese edition of Civil Unrest and Governance in Hong Kong) (Hong Kong: HKU Press, 2020) (co-edited with John D. Wong) [In Chinese]
  3. Chinese Legal Reform and the Global Legal Order – Adoption and Adaptation(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) (co-edited with Zhao Yun)  (book review: [link] [link]) https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/chinese-legal-reform-and-the-global-legal-order/9B2888850C95C7F79726BEEA2CDCF06E 
  4. Civil Unrest and Governance in Hong Kong: Law and Order from Historical and Cultural Perspectives (New York, London: Routledge, 2017) (co-edited with John D. Wong) (book review:[link], [link]) https://www.routledge.com/Civil-Unrest-and-Governance-in-Hong-Kong-Law-and-Order-from-Historical/Ng-Wong/p/book/9781138689978
  1. The Law for Children (細路都識法). Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (三聯), 2017. [In Chinese]. http://www.jointpublishing.com/publishing/editor-sharing/kidslaw_edisharing.aspx
  • “Suspicious Minds: Chinese Nationalism, State Security and Education in Cold War Hong Kong, 1949–1970s”, Cold War History, forthcoming 2025 (co-authored with Florence Mok) 
  • “Borrowing without Banks: Deposit-Taking by Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Firms (1920s–1930s)” Business History Review 97.4 (2024): 809-838 (ARC journal ranking : A) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007680523000892
  • “Making Human Rights ‘Fundamental’: Johannes Chan And The Entrenchment Of The Hong Kong Bill Of Rights Ordinance,” Hong Kong Law Journal 53.1 (2023): 167-184 (co-authored with Albert Chen).
  • “Hearts and Minds in Hong Kong’s New Territories: Agriculture and Vegetable Marketing in a Cold War Borderland, circa 1946-1967,” Modern Asian Studies, (ARC journal ranking : A*) (2023) 57(6):1931-1958. (co-authored with Florence Mok, John Wong, Wallace Wu) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X22000610
  • “Tell Me What Happened: Pragmatics of Affect in Legal Communication,” International Journal of Semiotics and Law (2023) 36: 561–577 (co-authored with Wilson Chow, Kelvin Wong, Andrew Wong, Mie Hiramoto, Christian Go) 
  • “Exploratory multivariate space–time analysis of colonial justice in Hong Kong during 1900–1930,” GeoJournal 86.1 (2021): 255-279. (co-authored with Edwin T. Chow, David W.S. Wong and Carlo Chan)
  • “Who but the Governor in Executive Council is the Judge?”: Historical Use of the Emergency Regulations Ordinance,” Hong Kong Law Journal (2020) 50.2: 425-461. (co-authored with Zhang Shengyue and Max Wong)
  • “Justice without lawyers: historical and empirical study of rural legal service in China,”   (無需律師的正義：中國農村法律服務體系的歷史與實証分析) Sun Yat-sen University Law Review (2019) 17. 2 (co-authored with Pan Xuanming) [In Chinese]
  • “When Silence Speaks: Press Censorship and Rule of Law in British Hong Kong (1850s-1940s),” Law and Literature (ARC journal ranking: A) 29.3 (2017): 425-456 DOI: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/dEHGYK63ECgCKGHQaDPf/full 
  • “Non-Professional Access to Justice in Rural China: A History of Atypical Legal Development and Legal Service Provision,” China Review 17.3 (2017): 59-86 (co-authored with Xuanming Pan).
  • “Geographical Dimension of Colonial Justice: Using GIS in Research on Law and History,” Law and History Review (Cambridge, ARC journal ranking: A) 34.4 (2016): 1027-1045 (co-authored with Edwin T. Chow and David W.S. Wong) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S073824801600033X
  • “Rule of Law in Hong Kong History Demythologised: Student Umbrella Movement of 1919,” Hong Kong Law Journal 46.3 (2016): 829-847.
  • “Disintermediator or another intermediary? E-simulation platform for professional legal education at University of Hong Kong,” European Journal of Law and Technology7.1 (2016) (co-authored with Wilson Chow) http://ejlt.org/article/view/502
  • “Dirt of Whitewashing: Re-conceptualizing Debtors’ Obligations in Chinese Business by Transplanting Bankruptcy Law to Early British Hong Kong (1860s-1880s),” Business History (ARC journal ranking: A) 27.8 (2015): 1219-1247. (Faculty Research Output Prize 2015-16) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2015.1025762
  • “Seeking a change of legal mind?” (見異思遷 ?) Renmin University Law Review (人大法律評論) 18 (2015): 376-386. [In Chinese].
  • “Legal Education without the Law – Lay clients as teachers and assessors in communication skills,” International Journal of the Legal Profession (ARC journal ranking: A), 22(1) 2015: 103-125. (co-authored with Wilson Chow) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2015.1075888
  • “Business of Justice and Justice of Business – The Legal Profession of Republican Beijing,” Journal of Comparative Law (London)6.2 (2012): 292-321. (Faculty Research Output Prize 2012-13)
  •  “GIS in Urban Cultural Studies: Reflections from the Project on Republican Beijing,” Annals of GIS 18.1 (2012): 81-92. (co‐authored with Billy KL So, Zhang Peiyao, and Lin Hui)
  •  “Attorney on Trial: When the Lawyers met the Phony Lawyers in Republican Beijing.”International Journal of Asian Studies (Cambridge, ARC journal ranking: A,) 8.1 (2011): 25-39. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1479591410000240
  •  “Unitary Policy Producing Different Outcomes at Different Locations,” (一場改革, 不同地方, 多種可能) Journal for Legal History Studies (法制史研究) (Academia Sinica, Taipei) 15 (2009): 287-293. [In Chinese]
  • “Empires Collaborate: Geopolitics of Colonial Policing in Hong Kong (1880s–1970s),” in W. Chen & H. Fu eds., Regime Type and Beyond: The Transformation of Police in Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023)
  • “The Making of the Constitutional Order of the Hong Kong SAR: The Role of Sino-British Diplomacy (1982–90),” in Kevin Tan and Michael Ng, eds., Constitutional Foundings in Northeast Asia (Oxford: Hart, 2021) (co-authored with Albert Chen)
  • “Justice of Indebtedness,” (“欠”的公道：當19世纪香港華商遇上英式破產法) in Chiu Pengsheng ed., The Law and Societal Change in Ming and Qing China (明清法律與社會變遷). Beijing: Law Press, 2020. [In Chinese]
  • “Rule of law and Nostalgia of Colonial Days,” (法治 . 戀殖) in Chu Yiu-wai, ed., Hong Kong Keywords: Imagining the New Future (香港關鍵詞：想像新未來), p. 77-88. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2019 [In Chinese]
  • “Experientialization of Legal Education in Hong Kong: Adoption and Adaptation,” in Legal Education in Asia – From Imitation to Innovation, Andrew Harding, Jiaxiang Hu and Maartje De Visser eds., Leiden: Brill, 2018 (co-authored with Wilson Chow and Julienne Jen)
  • “Judicial Orientalism – Imaginaries of Chinese Legal Transplantation in Common Law,” in Chinese Legal Reform and the Global Legal Order – Adoption and Adaptation, Zhao Yun and Michael H.K. Ng eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
  • “The Law, China, and the World: An introduction,” in Chinese Legal Reform and the Global Legal Order – Adoption and Adaptation, Zhao Yun and Michael H.K. Ng eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. (co-authored with Yun Zhao)
  • “Negotiating the Legitimacy of Governance,” in Civil Unrest and Governance in Hong Kong: Law and Order from Historical and Cultural Perspectives, Michael H.K. Ng and John D. Wong eds., New York, London: Routledge, 2017. (co-authored with John D. Wong)
  •  “Legal System and Administration of Justice in Colonial Hong Kong,” (殖民地時代香港的法制與司法), in Hong Kong History: New Perspectives (香港史新編), Wang Gungwu, ed., Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 2016 (co-authored with Albert Chen and Christopher Munn) [In Chinese].
  •  “The First Standardized Client Initiative in Asia – University of Hong Kong’s Experience,” in The Calling of Law: the pivotal role of vocational legal education,Karen Barton and Fiona Westwood eds., 165-180. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2014 (co-authored with Wilson Chow).
  • “The ordering of crime in Republican Beijing from the 1910s to the 1930s,” in Billy K.L. So and Madeleine Zelin, eds., New narratives of urban space in Republican Chinese cities : emerging social, legal and governance orders, p. 113-134. Leiden: Brill, 2013
  • “Spatial Structure of Urban Legal Culture of Beijing,” (北京都市法律文化的空間空結構) in Urban Space and Cultural Dynamics in Modern Chinese Cities (中國近代城市文化的動態發展:人文空間的新視野) Billy KL So ed., 139-152. Beijing: Zhejiang University Press, 2012. [In Chinese]
  1. Book review of Florence Mok, Covert Colonialism: Governance, Surveillance and Political Culture in British Hong Kong, c. 1966–97 (University of Manchester Press, 2023), The China Quarterly. 2024; 257: 291-293.
  2. Book Review of Jennifer Neighbors, A Question of Intent: Homicide Law and Criminal Justice in Qing and Republican China (Brill 2018), China Review, 19.4 (2019).
  3. Book Review of Edmund Cheng and Samson Yuen, An Epoch of Social Movements: The Trajectory of Contentious Politics in Hong Kong （社運年代：香港抗爭政治的軌跡） (Chinese University Press, 2018), China Perspectives, 2019 (no.2).
  4. Book Review of The Body and Military Masculinity in Late Qing and Early Republican China by Nicolas Schillinger (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016), China Quarterly232, (2017).
  5. Book Review of The History and Theory of Legal Practice in China: Toward a Historical-social Jurisprudence by Philip Huang and Kathryn Bernhardt, (Brill: 2014), Monumenta Serica  LXIV no. 2 (2016).
  6. Book Review of The Shanghai Lawyers during Modern Social Change by Chen Tong (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 2008), Hong Kong Law Journal 39.3 (2009): 861-865.
  7. “From Despising Litigation Masters to Partnering with Lawyers – Observing the Development of Chinese Legal Culture from Shen Bao,” ( 從蔑視訟師到夥拍律師 — 從「申報」看近代中國法律文化的演變) China Law 6 (2010): 42-45. [In Chinese]
  8. “Transnational enterprises and sovereignty of developing countries,” Leaders 35 (2010): 21-23.
  1. Principal Investigator: General Research Fund (GRF) project funded by Hong Kong Government’s Research Grants Council: “Judicial Independence on Trial: Archival Study of Political Interference with the Colonial Hong Kong Courts (1842-1997)” (amount awarded: HK$ 742,000), 2025-2027.
  2. Principal Investigator: General Research Fund (GRF) project funded by Hong Kong Government’s Research Grants Council: “Liberating Hong Kong: The awakening of freedom of expression and the rule of law in British Hong Kong (1978-1997)” (amount awarded: HK$ 591,400),” 2021-2022.
  3. Principal Investigator: General Research Fund (GRF) project funded by Hong Kong Government’s Research Grants Council: “Freedom of Expression, Media Censorship and the Rule of Law in British Hong Kong (1850s-1980s) (amount awarded: HK$ 848,000),” 2018-2020.
  4. Principal Investigator: General Research Fund (GRF) project funded by Hong Kong Government’s Research Grants Council: “Mapping Colonial Justice of Early 20th Century Hong Kong (1900-1941): A Historical GIS Study (amount granted: HK$978,988), 2015-2017.
  5. Doris Zimmern HKU-Cambridge Hughes Hall Fellowship 2017-18
  6. Faculty Research Output Prize 2015-16, Law Faculty, HKU
  7. Faculty Outstanding Teaching Award 2015-16.
  8. University Research Output Prize 2014-2015.
  9. Universitas 21 Fellowship 2014-2015, as visiting scholar at University of Melbourne Law School.
  10. Faculty Research Output Prize 2012-13, Law Faculty, HKU
  11. Fellowship of Higher Education Academy
  1. Editorial board member of Cold War in Asia Book Series of Amsterdam University Press
  2. Vice President, International Society for Chinese Law and History (2024-26)
  3. Book series co-editor of  Routledge Law in Asia series by Routledge
  4. Book series co-editor of  History of Chinese Legal Culture (中國法律文化史論叢) series by Zhejiang University Press [In Chinese]
  5. Co-editor, Chinese Law Section, Hong Kong Law Journal
  6. Executive Officer, International Society for Chinese Law and History (2017-2019)
  • “Colonialism and Human Rights,”  presented at the American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting 2023.
  • “Political Censorship in British Hong Kong” – invited talks at the University of Oxford, University College London, UCLA, the National University of Singapore, University of Durham, University of Bristol, University of York, University of Warwick, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Academia Sinica (Oct 2022 – Nov 2023).
  • “Trends in Researching Chinese Law and History” presented at 3rd International Conference of International Society for Chinese Law and History held at National Taipei University in May 2019.
  • “Domestic Justice: Choosing Husbands and Reinventing : Gender Equality by Republican Chinese Women (1920s-1930s)”presented at Chinese Justice in Global Context Symposium held at School of Law, University of Hawaii on 9 Mar 2018.
  • “Silencing Hong Kong: Press Censorship, Free Speech and Rule of Law in British Hong Kong (1850s–1940s)” – invited lecture at the University of Oxford China Centre, 1 Feb 2018.
  • “Rule of Law in Hong Kong History Demythologised: Press Censorship in British Hong Kong (1850s-1940s)” presented in 2nd International Conference of International Society for Chinese Law and History held at Chinese University of Politics and Law (Beijing) in July 2017.
  • “Rule of Law in Hong Kong History Demythologised: Student Umbrella Movement of 1919” – invited  seminar organised by SOAS China Institute and Centre of East Asian Law of SOAS Law School, London in Jan 2017.
  • “Transplanting indigenous legal practices to a transplanted legal system? An archival study of the Beijing criminal court in early Republican China (1910s)” – invited seminar at Asian Law Centre, University of Melbourne Law School, 28 August 2014.
  • “Dirt of Whitewashing: Re-conceptualizing Debtors’ Obligations in Chinese Business” presented in World Economic History Congress held at Kyoto in August 2015.
  •  “Law, Debt and Good Merchant: Chinese Business and English Bankruptcy Law in Early British Hong Kong (1860s-1880s)” presented in Inaugural International Conference International Society for Chinese Law and History held at Fudan University Law School (Shanghai) in July 2015.
  •  “Judicial Orientalism: The Making of Chinese Legal Transplant by Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal” presented in the Symposium on Chinese Legal Reform and the Global Legal Order held at HKU in June 2015.
  • “Mapping Hong Kong History” presented in Workshop on Hong Kong History organized by HKU (School of Humanities) and University of Bristol (Sponsored by Hatton Trust and Sino-British Fellowship Trust), held at HKU in May 2015.
  • “Legal Education without the Law – Lay clients as teachers and assessors in communication skills in Hong Kong” presented in Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference held at University of Nottingham in September 2014.
  • “From Order to Orphans – Policing Reinvented in Republican Beijing (1912-1937)” presented in: International Conference on “Modernity and Chinese Legal Culture: A Dialogue between China and the West” held at Renmin University, Beijing on 26 May, 2013.