Three Views of Local Consciousness in Hong Kong 香港 地元 の意識、三つの視点
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Volume 12 | Issue 44 | Number 1 | Article ID 4207 | Nov 02, 2014 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Three Views of Local Consciousness in Hong Kong 香港 地元 の意識、三つの視点 Ho-fung Hung Korean translation available In the meantime, the British flag or Hong Kong flag containing the Union Jack started to Chan, Koon-chung. 2012. Zhongguo tianchao appear and spread in annual July st1 and zhuyi yu Xianggang (China’s Heavenly Doctrine January 1st demonstrations in 2012. Slogans and Hong Kong). Hong Kong: Oxford University attacking mainland tourists and even “Chinese Press. colonialists” surfaced. Chin Wan. 2011. Xianggang Chengbang lun (On Hong Kong as a city state). Hong Kong: Enrich Publishing. Jiang Shigong. 2008.Zhongguo Xianggang: wenhua yu zhengzhi de shiye(China’s Hong Kong: cultural and political perspectives). Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Hong Kong has been in turmoil. The 2003 demonstration in which more than half a million demonstrators successfully forestalled the Article 23 anti-subversion legislation2, as well as the 2012 rally of 130,000 and the threat Beijing and many pro-establishment observers of general student strikes that forced the sensed the emergence of a strong localist government to shelve implementation of a identity and even a pro-independence Beijing-ordered National Education curriculum disposition. Besides explicit political in Hong Kong schools, showed that Beijing declarations that defy Beijing rule, localist and could not crack down on Hong Kong’santi-Chinese youth also initiated militant direct dissenting voices as readily as it repeatedly has action. One example was the protest that in mainland China. Such resistance victories sought to disrupt smuggling activities by have not brought a willingness to compromise mainland tourists to defend local supply of daily on fundamentals by either Hong Kong’snecessities, most of all baby formula, echoing opposition forces or Beijing. On the contrary, the food riots in early modern Europe studied they may have radicalized both sides. Beijing’s in E. P. Thompson’s seminal article “The moral decision to induct hardliner CY Leung as the economy of the English crowd in the chief executive in 2012, despite strongEighteenth century.”3 Localist demonstrations opposition even from its traditional allies also led the Hong Kong government to restrict among the city’s tycoons, shows that it is ready birth tourism from the mainland that strained to use more draconian means to deal with an the public hospital system. increasingly bold opposition intent on upholding Hong Kong’s relative autonomy. Recent opinion polls show that Hong Kong 1 12 | 44 | 1 APJ | JF identity has been surging while Chinese Xiaoping’s denunciation of the Cultural identity has been fading among Hong Kong Revolution had thrown the baby out with the residents, particularly among youth.4 Such bathwater by erroneously discrediting the radicalization of Hong Kong localexperiment in “Great Democracy” during the consciousness not only irritated Beijing. It also Cultural Revolution, depriving China of its departs from the historical domination of indigenous discourse on democracy and Chinese nationalist discourse in Hong Kong’s becoming speechless in the face of the western opposition movement, which has tended to see promotion of bourgeois democracy (Jiang 2008: itself as an avatar of Chinese liberalization and 187-8). At the same time, he is one of the key democratization, since its inception in the authors who introduced Carl Schmitt’s legal 1980s. philosophy, which sees the practice of differentiating enemies from friends and the The question of local identity in Hong Kong is absolute decisiveness of the sovereign as being examined from the perspectives of Beijing, of utmost importance in politics, with priority Chinese nationalist liberals, and Hong Kong over legal and legislative authorities. Jiang local youth in three recent books by Jiang served as a researcher in the Liaison Office of Shigong, Chan Koon-chung and Chin Wan. The the Central People’s Government in Hong increasing assertiveness of Beijing as an Kong, the de facto CCP headquarters in Hong imperial center over Hong Kong, part and Kong, between 2004 and 2007. During and parcel of the rising statism and nationalism after his tenure in Hong Kong, he published a among the Chinese elite, is epitomized by Jiang series of articles articulating his views on the Shigong’s book. Chan Koon-chung’s and Chin Hong Kong question and its significance for Wan’s books constitute powerful retorts to China’s revival as a Confucian empire in Beijing’s neo-imperialist stance on Hong Kong, Beijing’s Dushu (Reading) magazine. The both explicitly challenging Jiang’s thesis. While present book is a collection of those articles. Chan’s response resonates with the perspective While his view is not unique among the New of liberal intellectuals in mainland China, Left, his position as the Associate Dean of the Chin’s response, rooted in a Hong Kong School of Law in Peking University and his perspective, reflects the rising tide of Hong earlier official affiliation with the Liaison Office Kong localist ideology and actions. in Hong Kong make him the most conspicuous Seeing Hong Kong like an Empire voice on Hong Kong close to the party-state’s power center. In recent years, part of the New Left in China that critiqued American imperialism and Jiang asserts that though the “one country, two neoliberalism in the 1990s has morphed into a systems” formula served as a brilliant peculiar intellectual formation that advocates a arrangement that secured Hong Kong’s reunion union of apparently conflicting intellectual with China in 1997, it is incapable of tackling lineages including Marxism and Maoism, and the most important question regarding China’s right-wing statism as epitomized by Leo sovereignty over Hong Kong, that is, the Strauss, Nazi legal theorist Carl Schmitt, and question of Hong Kong people’s identity. Jiang Confucianism. This group of intellectuals has suggests that the solution to this question has been criticized by liberals as being complicit or to be sought through political rather than legal openly collaborative with the increasingly means, and Beijing has to think beyond the repressive party-state establishment.5 “one country, two systems” framework in its endeavor to transform Hong Kong residents Among this group of intellectuals is Jiang into true Chinese patriots. Short of that, Shigong. As a neo-Maoist, he fretted that Deng China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong can only 2 12 | 44 | 1 APJ | JF be formal and never substantive. incorporated regions with distinct customs and leadership to exercise local autonomy. But not Jiang believes that most Hong Kong people indefinitely. Over time, they would be have embraced the socialist motherland since integrated into the core territory of the empire, the 1950s. Even those Hong Kong Chinese who being culturally assimilated and having their collaborated with the British were alllocal autonomy abolished. Then the empire inherently patriotic because of familial ties to would move on to incorporate other new mainland China dating back generations (Jiang territories. The PRC’s incorporation of Hong 2008: 142-45). The most important task then is Kong, as well as the prospective assimilation of to help Hong Kong Chinese rediscover their Hong Kong and eventual incorporation and latent patriotism. Jiang stipulates that the assimilation of Taiwan, are illustrative of a British were shrewd at “winning the hearts and similar Chinese imperial expansionist mentalité minds” of Hong Kong people during their in the twenty-first century. Jiang’s implication colonial rule, and Beijing should learn from the is clear. The “one country, two systems” British experience. It is noteworthy that Jiang formula for Hong Kong is just a tactical and translated “winning hearts and minds” into transitional arrangement. What awaits Hong “xinao yingxin,” which literally means “washing Kong is what Tibet has seen since 1959: forced the brain and winning the hearts,” deviating assimilation and tight direct control by Beijing. from its original English meaning (Jiang 2008: 31). Jiang’s thesis is tantamount to saying that Throughout the book, Jiang does not shy from all Hong Kong Chinese are inherently Chinese using the term “empire” with positive “patriots-in-themselves” waiting to beconnotation. He even stipulates that the transformed by the vanguard patriots in Beijing revived Chinese empire should learn from the into “patriots-for-themselves.” It suggests that arts of rulership of the British empire. Jiang’s Beijing’s ideological work in Hong Kong is embrace of Maoism, quasi-fascism, and essential to overcoming local identities. In imperialism in his discussion of Hong Kong is retrospect, Jiang’s diagnosis coincides well not exceptional, but is emblematic of the CCP’s increasingly assertiveness toward Hong Kong. with Beijing’s agenda for Hong Kong in the wake of his tenure there, as shown by the 2012 Seeing Hong Kong like a PRC Liberal attempt to introduce the compulsory National Education curriculum in all schools. Chan Koonchung’s Zhongguo tianchao zhuyi yu Xianggang is an explicit response to Jiang’s Jiang argues that the “one country, two views on Hong Kong. Besides outlining an systems” arrangement in Hong Kong, whose alternative interpretation of Hong Kong’s origins can be traced to the “Seventeen Point history and its historical relationship with Agreement” between Beijing and the Dalai China, Chan devotes about half of its pages to Lama government over Tibet in 1951, is critiquing Jiang’s views. Chan rightly observes significant not only because it anticipates Hong that Jiang’s views have been circulating among Kong’s reunion with China, but also because it Chinese officials for years, but were never presages the revival of China as an empire publicly formulated. He welcomes Jiang’s open 6 (Jiang 2008: 123-58). To Jiang, the Chinese elaboration of such views, as it offers a good empire, which reached its pinnacle in the Qing opportunity to interrogate the theoretical dynasty (1644-1911), was grounded on the underpinnings of China’s Hong Kong policy.