Chinese Government Response to the 2019 Hong Kong Protests: A Corpus-Based Lexical Study Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Skylor Evan Sergio Gomes, B.S. Graduate Program in East Asian Studies The Ohio State University 2020 Thesis Committee Marjorie K.M. Chan, Advisor Mineharu Nakayama Zhiguo Xie Copyrighted by Skylor Evan Sergio Gomes 2020 2 Abstract The 2019 Hong Kong Protests have elicited responses and reactions around the world, with some praising the actions of the protestors while others have condemned them. However, this is not the first time protests have occurred in Hong Kong. Influences from these past protests can be seen in the 2019 protests, although the presence of the internet and social media has changed not only the methods for protests, but the stage for them as well. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impacts of the Hong Kong protests that began in 2019. This study will be conducted through the analysis of the language used by the Chinese government in response to the ongoing protests. Data for this study was collected from social media posts made to Twitter as well as news articles, from both mainland China and outside sources. With this corpus, I intend to conduct a lexical study in order to characterize attitudes regarding the protests and its participants. The current situation in Hong Kong has had a myriad of effects that can be seen not only within the country of China itself, but also around the world. Understanding the rhetoric and the intentions behind it may help to clarify China’s view on both the 2019 Hong Kong Protests and the city as a whole. ii Acknowledgments I would first like to thank my advisor, Dr. Marjorie Chan. Taking her undergraduate level history of the Chinese language course is what developed my interest in returning to Ohio State University to study Chinese linguistics. At the time, she invited our class to attend the 2016 Buckeye East Asian Linguistics Forum at Ohio State University. It was there that she introduced me to the guest speaker, a computational linguist, and sparked my interest in the subject. In addition to this she wrote many recommendation letters for me, from my graduate school application to my applications for the FLAS fellowship. Without her help and patience throughout this whole process, this thesis would not have been possible. I also want to thank Dr. Zhiguo Xie, one of the members of my advising committee. The courses I took from him were challenging, and made me change the way I approached reading scholarly articles for the better. From him, I learned valuable skills such as writing linguistic abstracts. His comments and questions were very helpful in refining my thesis. I want to thank Dr. Mineharu Nakayama, also a member of my advising committee. He put forth a lot of effort in reviewing the drafts of my thesis, and I very much appreciate all that he did. His comments and formatting suggestions helped to significantly clarify my thesis. He provided a very much needed perspective as someone who is not a speaker of Chinese, so I needed to be sure that other readers like him would be able to follow any examples I give by providing as accurate iii translations as possible. Jingdi Shen, one of my former classmates, is another person I am extremely grateful towards. She was my classmate during my first semester as a graduate student, and often informed me of classes that would be beneficial for me to enroll in. Her own MA thesis inspired my research, so for that I would like to thank her. Amy Carey, the coordinator for the FLAS fellowship, was also very helpful to me as she ensured I met all the requirements of the fellowship. Her periodic check-ins showed that she genuinely cared about her students and also kept me on-track. I would also like to thank my parents for their patience and support. I never shared much about what I was working on, but they continued to support my desire to do research nonetheless. Last but not least, I want to thank Phimon-orn Visitthanaporn for the company on the many late nights spent working on thesis drafts and coding. All of these people made this thesis possible. iv Vita 2012 - 2016……..……..……..………………..B.S. Computer Science & Engineering The Ohio State University 2018-Present……………………………………FLAS Fellow, East Asian Studies Interdisciplinary, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major field: East Asian Studies Area of emphasis: Chinese linguistics/computational linguistics v Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iii Vita ...................................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi List of Tables .................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures .................................................................................................................. viii Chapter 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Historical Background.......................................................................................... 2 1.2 History of Protests ................................................................................................ 4 Chapter 2. The 2019 Protests at a Glance: Three Phases of Protest ................................. 10 2.1. Phase 1: Prelude to the Protests (March - June 2019) ........................................... 13 2.2. Phase 2: Escalation (July - August 2019) .............................................................. 14 2.3. Phase 3: Climax of the Crisis & Lull (September - December 2019) ................... 15 Chapter 3. Methodology ................................................................................................... 18 Chapter 4. Findings ........................................................................................................... 25 4.1 News Findings ........................................................................................................ 26 4.2. Twitter Findings ..................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 5. Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 54 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 59 vi List of Tables Table 1: Distribution of the News Articles Across the Three Phases ............................... 25 Table 2: Contents of the 30 CCTV News Articles ........................................................... 42 vii List of Figures Figure 1. Timeline of the 2019 Hong Kong Protests ........................................................ 12 Figure 2: Occurrences of “Illegal/Unlawful” in the 30 CCTV News Articles ................. 33 Figure 3: Occurrences of “Violent” in the 30 CCTV News Articles ................................ 39 Figure 4: Occurrences of Hashtags Referring to Police in the 772 messages .................. 46 Figure 5: Most Used Terms for Protestors in the 772 messages....................................... 48 Figure 6: Occurrences of Frequently-Used Terms on Twitter in the 772 messages ......... 52 viii Chapter 1. Introduction Hong Kong’s political identity as well as its relationship with mainland China has long been complicated. There have been many disputes as to how Hong Kong should govern itself, with there being a clear divide between the desires of Hong Kong’s citizens and those in Beijing. This has led to dissent and protests several times in the past. It does not appear as though this divide will be mended in the near future, as once again Hong Kong finds itself in the midst of another pro-Democracy protest. The ongoing protests that broke out in the middle of 2019 are the result of long-standing tensions in the Special Administrative Region, a designation gained as a result of Hong Kong’s status as a former British Colony and an agreement made for its subsequent return to China. In order to understand the stances of both sides of the conflict it is important to know the history of Hong Kong, and how this history eventually led up to the events that we are seeing unfold today. The goal of this thesis is to analyze the rhetoric of the Chinese government in regard to the protests that broke out in mid-2019 and to determine how this reflects their view on Hong Kong. This two-prong goal will be accomplished through the use of quantitative analysis, to be detailed in Chapter 3. The thesis is organized as follows. This first chapter will be used to provide some background information about the history of Hong Kong and its relationship with mainland China. In Chapter 2, three phases will be posited, together with a timeline highlighting the significant events of the 2019 Hong Kong Protests. Chapter 3 will contain the research methodology and Chapter 4 a presentation and analysis of the findings. Chapter 5 will serve as 1 the conclusion containing