Studio Incendo/Creative Commons 2Ā·0
As an expat, Iāve been asked a few times about what I think of the Hong Kong protests. Thereās no straight answer to this. Here are a few thoughts, in no particular order.
- The British never gave us universal suffrage, so the notion that it was all roses before 1997 is BS. The best the Brits managed was half of LegCo toward the end, but before that it was pitiful. And the express reasons they didnāt give it to us, certainly in the mid-20th century, were racist.
- Having said that, Iād love to see half of LegCo up for grabs, if not more.
- The extradition bill is, in the grand scheme, pretty minor. If the PRC really wants to grab you, they will.
- However, I totally get that codifying it into law gives them greater authority, or is perceived to give them that.
- It wouldnāt be the first time the US State Department and others meddled in our affairs, and I donāt believe this is an exception.
- Expecting the British to help out is a hiding to nothing. The Shadow Cabinet was critical of John Majorās Conservatives in the 1990s over Hong Kong, and when in office, months before the handover, was arguably even less effective. Thereāll be the occasional op-ed from Chris Patten. Not much else. The UK is too mired in its own issues anyway, looking more and more like the sort of failed state that it professes to āhelpā right now.
- It hasnāt helped that HK Chinese feel that our culture is under threat, including our language, and there hasnāt been any indication from the PRC of alleviating this (the old playbook again). Observers inside China may see HKersā embrace of its internationalist culture as colonial and subservient to foreigners; HKers see it as a direct contrast to the lack of openness within the PRC between 1949 and the early 1980s and as a āfreerā expression of Chineseness. Arguments could be made either way on the merits of both positions. That resentment has been stoked for some time, and HKers will only need to point to the Uighurs as an indication of their fears.
- Withdrawal of the bill, even temporarily, would have been wiser, as itās not a time for the PRC to get hard-line over this. This shouldnāt be a case of us v. them. This is, however, a perfect opportunity to have dialogue over reinterpreting āone country, two systemsā, and persuade the ROC of its meritāthe Chinese commonwealth idea that has been in my thoughts for a long time. However, Xi is one of the old-school tough guys, and this mightnāt be on his agenda. China hasnāt exactly gone to young people to ask them what they thinkāwe never have, whether youāre talking about the imperial times, the period between 1911 and 1949, or afterwards.
- This might be my romantic notions of Hong Kong coloured by childhood memories, but the place thrived when the young could express themselves freely through music and other arts. They felt they had a voice and an identity.
- Right now thereās a huge uncertainty about who we are. I think weāre proudly Chinese in terms of our ethnicity and heritage, and we might even think our ideas of what this means are superior to othersā. Rose-coloured glasses are dangerous to don because they donāt tell us the truth. But we might be nostalgic for pre-1997 because the expression of our identity was so much clearer when the ruling power was nothing like us. Who cares if they thought we were a bunch of piccaninnies if they just let us get on with our shit? Now thereās a battle between āour Chinesenessā versus ātheir Chinesenessā in the eyes of some HKers. Thanks to certain forces stoking the tensions, and probably using the resentment HK Chinese feel, there isnāt a comfortable, foreseeable way out any time soon.