Hong Kong’s Make-or-Break Moment

In October, Catalonians are going to hold a referendum in which voters will be asked to answer this question: “Do you want Catalonia to be an independent country in the form of a republic?” The Spanish government fiercely opposes the referendum and has vowed to use all possible means, including taking over the Catalonian civil service and police, to stop the referendum from being held. Without doubt, the current political impasse is the result of the escalation of conflicts between the Catalonians and the Spanish government over the past few years.

It is worth noting that for many decades the mainstream demand of the Catalonians, as usually pointed out by political scientists, has been autonomy (particularly when compared with the Basques, who strongly favor outright independence). But since 2010 the Catalonians’ demands for greater autonomy (especially with regards to fiscal autonomy) have faced stronger and stronger rebuttals by the Spanish government under the leadership of the People’s Party. The two sides have been plunged into a vicious cycle – the centralism of the Spanish government has somehow pushed the Catalonians to escalate their demands from autonomy to secession, and the growing secessionist demands of Catalonians have in turn prompted the Spanish government to further tighten its grip on Catalonia.

In textbooks, political scientists usually describe such a vicious cycle as the clash of state-building nationalism (the conscious efforts of the center to assimilate and incorporate peripheries into the centralizing state) and periphery nationalism (the conscious efforts of the periphery to defend its autonomy and to resist incorporation by a centralizing state).

Unfortunately, a similar drama can also be found on the other side of the earth – Hong Kong under Chinese sovereignty.

From Non-Interventionism to Active Engagement

Unlike most former British colonies, which generally became independent states or dominions after the end of colonial rule, the future of Hong Kong was decided by Beijing and London behind closed doors in 1984, through the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Hong Kongers were denied both the right to self-determination and the chance to take part formally in the Sino-British negotiations. According to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, and subsequently the Basic Law (the mini-constitution, which took effect after July 1, 1997), Hong Kong would be put under Chinese sovereignty under the name of a Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) enjoying a high degree of autonomy under the framework of the “one country, two systems” (OCTS) model.

Officially speaking, the OCTS model was proposed by Beijing to keep Hong Kong’s capitalist system and way of life unchanged for 50 years. The various autonomous powers conferred upon Hong Kong after 1997 have effectively separated Hong Kong from mainland Chinese systems and therefore helped prolong the periphery identity of “Hong Konger.” In other words, the various “distinctive” traits of Hong Kongers vis-à-vis mainland Chinese, which were the products and legacies of century-long British colonial rule, have been preserved and indeed codified under the OCTS model. Such traits include Hong Kong’s  liberal political values (e.g. liberty, rule of law, and corruption-free government), spoken language (Cantonese), written language (traditional Chinese characters), and transnational society (multi-ethnic population).

It was obvious that in the early years of the handover (particularly from 1997 to 2003, under the first term of Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa), Beijing largely adopted a position of nonintervention in Hong Kong and allowed the HKSAR government to govern Hong Kong on its own. The non-interventionism of Beijing successfully built confidence within the local population and the international community in the OCTS model, effectively sidelining potential center-periphery conflicts between Beijing and Hong Kong and making the HKSAR government under Tung’s leadership the principal focus of political controversies.

Nevertheless, 2003 was a turning point that put an end to Beijing’s nonintervention policy and subsequently changed the dynamics of center-periphery relations under the OCTS model. On July 1, 2003, over 500,000 Hong Kongers joined in a mass protest against the HKSAR government’s plan to legislate on Article 23 of the Basic Law (regarding the protection of national security). Protesters were also angry about the poor governance of the Tung administration. Surprised by the strong anti-communist sentiments as expressed by over half a million Hong Kongers during the 2003 protest, Beijing believed that the democrats had played an influential role in mobilizing protesters to confront the mainland over the proposed national security legislation. Beijing also insisted that “foreign forces” had exercised a significant behind-the-scenes influence.

Worried that Hong Kong would be developed into a subversive base against and in confrontation with the central government, since 2003 Beijing has decided to change its policy with regard to Hong Kong from nonintervention to active engagement. To use the words of nationalism scholars, Beijing’s active engagement effectively means embarking on an assimilationist state-building nationalism aimed at incorporating Hong Kong into greater central control on the political, economic, and ideological fronts.

Politically, Beijing has determined to bring Hong Kong under more direct supervision from the central government, first by proactively exercising its supreme constitutional powers – in particular the power of National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) to re-interpret the provisions of the Basic Law to control the pace and scope of Hong Kong’s democratic reforms. Second, Beijing strengthened the role of the central government’s Liaison Office as the “second governing team” in the HKSAR to direct the domestic political affairs of Hong Kong on the spot, such as coordinating the campaigns of pro-Beijing elites at different levels of local elections, from District Council to Legislative Council and chief executive.

Economically, Beijing sped up cross-border economic integration so as to pull Hong Kong’s economy into the orbit of the mainland.  Through the signing of various cross-border economic cooperation agreements the flow of people, goods, and services across the mainland-Hong Kong border has been encouraged, blurring the boundaries between the two places. In addition, various regional cooperation platforms have been set up (e.g. the Hong Kong/Guangdong Cooperation Joint Conference and Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Cooperation and Development Forum) and Hong Kong has also been officially incorporated into the economic planning system of Beijing since the 11th National Five-Year Plan of 2006. Without a doubt, after more than a decade of cross-border economic integration, Hong Kong has been effectively brought under Beijing’s economic control.

Ideologically, Beijing has promoted a single Chinese national identity throughout schools in Hong Kong, in the name of “national education.” Nurturing a Chinese national identity has been adopted as one of the official learning goals for Hong Kong’s primary and secondary education and national education elements have been introduced into various subjects such as Chinese language, Chinese history, and liberal studies. Apart from the formal curriculum, primary, secondary, and tertiary students are generously funded by the HKSAR government to join mainland-related exchange activities such as mainland study tours and internships. Clearly, all these efforts represent Beijing’s attempts to foster Hong Kongers’ loyalty to the center and to promote ideological homogeneity across the whole country.

Beijing’s attempts to bring Hong Kong under greater central control have been most clearly illustrated by its changing official rhetoric on Hong Kong affairs. If “one country, two systems,” “Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong,” and “high degree of autonomy” were the bywords usually quoted by Beijing’s leaders during the transitional period of 1984-1997 and in the initial years of the HKSAR period, then in recent years the most important keywords adopted by Beijing officials are undoubtedly “powers of the central authorities” (zhongyang quanli). Since 2003, Beijing officials have made use of various public occasions to emphasize the importance of respecting and recognizing the “powers of the central authorities” under the OCTS model.

These authorities, as most clearly stated in the controversial “White Paper on the Practice of the One Country, Two Systems Policy in the Hong Kong Special Administration Region,” which was issued in June 2014 by the central government’s State Council, represents Beijing’s “overall jurisdiction (quanmian guanzhi quan) over the Hong Kong Special Administration Region” covering both the “powers directly exercised by the central government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region” and the “powers that the central government delegates to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government” (while keeping oversight over the exercise of such powers by the HKSAR).

The Rise of Center-Periphery Conflicts: A New Regionalist Party System for Hong Kong

History tells us that it is difficult, if not impossible, for the center to successfully incorporate the periphery. Rather, the incorporation strategies of the center will usually arouse the anxiety of people in the periphery about the erosion of their distinctive identity. The accumulation of such anxieties will, paradoxically, result in the consolidation and counter-mobilization of the peripheral identity. Hong Kong is no exception to this rule.

Beijing’s political, economic, and ideological incorporation strategy since 2003 not only failed to assimilate Hong Kongers into the centralizing Chinese state, it has only served to exacerbate Hong Kongers’ anxieties about the erosion of their distinctiveness vis-à-vis mainland Chinese. In recent years the accumulation of such anxieties has triggered waves of localist mobilizations against Beijing. These waves have manifested in election campaigns, exemplified by the widespread use of localist rhetoric such as “defending Hong Kong” and “resisting red tide/intervention/mainlandization” by opposition politicians in the 2015 District Council election and the 2016 Legislative Council election. Social movements – such as the 2012 anti-national education movement, which aimed at resisting the implementation of “Moral and National Education” in primary and secondary school and the 79-day Umbrella Movement, which tried to resist the decision of the NPCSC on August 31, 2014 regarding the universal suffrage model for chief executive elections – are also illustrations of localist reaction to Beijing’s incorporation strategies.

Most importantly, the escalation and intensification of center-periphery conflicts in recent years have significantly transformed the nature and dynamics of opposition politics in Hong Kong. Since the 1980s universal suffrage had been the principal political cleavage that divided society. Hong Kong’s political spectrum has been commonly interpreted as confrontations between the conservatives (encompassing both pro-Beijing businessmen and leftists) and the democrats (covering both moderate democrats and radical democrats who have different thoughts about the strategies and tactics for fighting for universal suffrage). Nevertheless, because the NPCSC’s decision on August 31, 2014 has effectively put an end to traditional debates over the implementation of universal suffrage and intensified the direct conflict between Hong Kong and Beijing, the center-periphery cleavage has quickly become the principal focus that divides society now.

Therefore an embryonic regionalist party system has emerged in Hong Kong, with opposition politicians quickly shifting their focus from the pace, scope, and model of universal suffrage to center-periphery politics (i.e. Hong Kong’s constitutional relations with mainland China). If whether or not to touch on Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong is the principal dividing line, then the opposition parties in Hong Kong today could be divided into the pro-autonomy camp and pro-secession camp, which is increasingly similar to political trends in other peripheries such as Catalonia, Quebec, Åland, Greenland, and South Tyrol.

It Takes Two to Tango

The rise of peripheral nationalism has surely alarmed leaders in Beijing, who have already demonstrated their determination and readiness to suppress the localist mobilizations, particularly those political activities that are secessionist in nature. For example, the reinterpretation of Article 104 of the Basic Law by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee on November 7, 2016 effectively blocked two pro-independence legislators, Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-ching, from taking office after the 2016 Legislative Council election. Nevertheless, Beijing’s strong rebuttals do not really help stop the trend of peripheral nationalism but have in fact triggered much stronger peripheral nationalist sentiments within the local population, in particular among the younger generation.

Therefore, paradoxically, instead of successfully assimilating Hong Kongers into the centralizing Chinese state, Beijing’s incorporation strategies since 2003 have proven to be counterproductive, intensifying rather than alleviating center-periphery conflicts. And the rise of reactive peripheral nationalism has prompted Beijing to even further tighten its grip on Hong Kong, bringing about much stronger peripheral nationalist sentiment among Hong Kongers. Hong Kong and Beijing have been plunged into a vicious cycle of escalating center-periphery conflicts, against the backdrop of the clash between state-building nationalism and peripheral nationalism.

The 20th anniversary of the official handover of Hong Kong should be a good chance for both Hong Kongers and Beijing to conduct a mid-term review of the OCTS model. The bottom line for Hong Kong-China relations is that unless both sides can rediscover room to create a model of autonomy that could more adequately accommodate Hong Kong’s distinctiveness under Chinese sovereignty, it is conceivable that the current center-periphery conflicts will continue in the foreseeable future.

Only 20 years after the handover, the OCTS model has already come to a make-or-break moment.