Hong Kong Occupy Central: Beyond Politics

The Hong Kong protests have been a fascinating display of civil disobedience and discontent in one of the only corners of the People’s Republic of China where such things are even possible. As a result, most of the discussion has focused on the political ramifications, even though the consensus is that the protesters will not achieve their main goal of unrestricted nominations and elections for the position of chief executive. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has already made it crystal clear that it will not accept such a challenge to its control over Hong Kong.

Interestingly, many of the protesters themselves understand this, but are determined to continue “occupying” the streets. As one young protester told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, “I won’t accept anything short of civic nominations, but making this come true is difficult.” The protesters realize they are fighting a quixotic battle that is all but doomed to fail in a practical sense – and yet they persist. This suggests that the protests are not actually about Hong Kong’s 2017 elections at all, but about a far deeper sense of discontent with the direction of the Special Administrative Region.

At its core, this is not about politics but identity. More and more Hongkongers (especially the young students who camped out in Admiralty, Mong Kok, and other areas) simply do not see themselves as “Chinese.” Beyond the surface issue of governance (and Hongkongers certainly don’t want to adopt the mainland’s political system), many Hongkongers fear that their identity, their way of life, is slipping away as the city becomes more integrated with Beijing. Sensing a threat to their identity, the protesters are clinging all the harder to a sense of “Hongkongness” – and they chose the 2017 elections as the battlefield for this larger struggle.

According to an ongoing survey project by the University of Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Program, a distinct sense of Hong Kong identity is on the rise. In June 2014, 40 percent of those surveyed identified solely as “Hongkongers.” Another 27 percent identify as “Hongkongers in China” – in effect, as Hongkongers first and Chinese second. Meanwhile, slightly fewer than 20 percent of people self-identify as “Chinese” (zhong guo ren) alone. This is a mirror image of 2008, when 18 percent of people identified as “Hongkongers” and over 38 percent identified as “Chinese.”

At the same time, surveys by the University of Hong Kong also show that Hongkonger’s confidence in the “one country, two systems” arrangement is plummeting. The latest round of the survey, done in early September, showed that for the first time ever, a majority of respondents (56 percent) were “not confident” in “one country, two systems.” By the same token, slightly fewer than 38 percent of people expressed confidence in that political arrangement (down from a high of nearly 78 percent in 2007). As the people of Hong Kong become more strongly attached to a unique identity, they are becoming less sanguine about the way their SAR interacts with mainland China.

China has long had to deal with identity issues on its peripheries, particularly in underdeveloped and largely impoverished regions like Tibet and Xinjiang. It’s obviously a stretch to compare Hong Kong with Xinjiang or Tibet in any granular way, but in all three cases Beijing’s greatest fear is that a competing sense of identity (whether “Hongkonger,” Uyghur, or Tibetan) is edging out “Chineseness” – and by extension, loyalty to the CCP. What makes Hong Kong so unique is that these sentiments are bubbling up in one of China’s wealthiest, most cosmopolitan, and highest profile cities. This makes the formation of a unique Hong Kong identity that aligns itself against conceptions of “Chineseness” more high profile and potentially more dangerous for Beijing.

The CCP has long championed an idealized version of Chinese identity that is embraced equally by all ethnic groups as well as by the distinct populations in Hong Kong, Macau, and (ideally) even Taiwan. But in practice, success has been limited. Minority groups like Uyghurs and Tibetans often complain of discrimination and marginalization within their own homelands; Hongkongers express similar feelings of displacement and identity dilution as more and more mainland Chinese make the SAR their home.

These tensions are not new. There have been several incidents of Hongkongers taking videos of mainlanders breaking social taboos (whether letting a child urinate in the street or eating on the subway) and holding the incidents up for ridicule. Mainlanders are derided as uncouth “locusts” who descend on Hong Kong in swarms.

Meanwhile, the mainlanders themselves blast Hongkongers as stuck-up traitors. Many mainlanders believe Hongkongers are snobbish and ungrateful for looking down on their fellow Chinese, particularly as mainland China is seen by many Chinese as the source of Hong Kong’s wealth. Hongkongers who are vocal in criticizing Beijing are often denounced as traitors by people on the mainland. Back in 2012, Peking University professor Kong Qingdong famously called Hongkongers immoral “running dogs” on Chinese television. They are dogs, not people, Kong said, infuriated precisely because Hongkongers do not think of themselves as Chinese.

Mainland Chinese are reacting viscerally to a perceived rejection of their own preferred identity. Beijing itself, however, has a more concrete reason for wanting to quash Hong Kong identity. As discussed above, the more Hongkongers see themselves as unique from the rest of China, the more reluctant they are to embrace “one country, two systems.” Hong Kong identity thus becomes a gateway to one of China’s greatest fears: separatism. In an October editorial, the People’s Daily accused the protesters of seeking “Hong Kong independence.” According to that piece, the protesters’ slogans reflect their “true purpose.” “What they want is not electoral democracy nor a ‘high degree of autonomy’ under ‘one country’ but Hong Kong’s ‘autonomy,’ Hong Kong’s ‘self-determination’ and even Hong Kong’s ‘independence,’” the paper warned.

The idea of self-determination is abhorrent to the CCP precisely because it knows there are several groups within China that, if given the choice, would choose greater distance from Beijing. From Xinjiang and Tibet to Hong Kong, a unique sense of identity (and alienation from “Chineseness” as defined by the mainland’s Han majority) is a driving force behind hopes for greater autonomy and yes, sometimes even independence. The CCP’s standard response is to attack and vilify groups that seek self-determination without addressing the larger questions of social and cultural identity that led to dissatisfaction with the current system.

As in Tibet and Xinjiang, Hong Kong’s identity issues can’t be solved through political maneuvering, and especially not through strong-man tactics. The protests we’re seeing now, regardless of how the situation is resolved, signal that Hong Kong’s identity crisis is here to stay – and is becoming more polarized as time passes.