The latest edition of the Hong Kong University Students’ Union magazine Undergrad carries some articles advocating independence for Hong Kong. It has sparked much discussion about independence that has still not abated.
Although those who hold power in Hong Kong keep saying independence is unachievable and threaten to take legal action against independence supporters, young people’s support for the idea has not ebbed. Among young people on the Internet hardly anybody takes such threats seriously.
When force is used to suppress a separatist movement, it ends up having the opposite effect. This pattern has become almost a law of history.
A century ago, the British used armed force to crush the Easter Rising in Dublin. Two years later, in the 1918 parliamentary election, candidates in favor of Irish independence won a majority of the seats representing Irish constituencies in the British parliament, sparking the Irish War of Independence in January 1919.
By 1921, Britain saw there was no way to win the war, so it allowed regions of Ireland that had majority Catholic populations to secede from Britain and establish the Irish Free State as a dominion that still recognized the king of England as its head of state.
Britain learned that allowing colonies to depart peacefully was the best solution. In 1931, the British parliament enacted the Statute of Westminster, which allowed Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Irish Free State to peacefully separate from Britain. The act ruled that the flags of Australia and New Zealand would still incorporate Britain’s Union Jack, while Canada recognizes the British monarch as its head of state to this day.
Why are calls for an independence Taiwan so rampant, with many people not even wanting to retain the Republic of China (ROC) national title or keep the ROC flag?
That former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) repressed Taiwan following the 228 Incident in 1947 and brutally imposed the White Terror era on it is commonly accepted as a historical fact, yet the KMT has never apologized. There are also some, like former Taiwan Provincial Government employee Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英), who are prejudiced against Taiwanese.
In such circumstances, Taiwanese definitely do not want to unite with China, and some people want to distance themselves from China. This is the desinicization movement. This strong resentment for China resulted from the brutal methods employed by Chiang.
As long as China keeps escalating its repression against the Hong Kong independence movement, the resentment that the younger generation in the territory feels will likewise escalate.
If resentment becomes deeply ingrained in Hong Konger’s hearts, China would no longer be able to manage the territory and it might even turn Hong Kong into another ticking time bomb in the south, just like Taiwan.
China should learn from Britain and stop suppressing independence movements. If people cannot get along, it would be a better to negotiate a divorce that both sides can accept.
Under such a peaceful separation, China would continue to benefits from Hong Kong and Taiwan, while resentment would be greatly diminished.
Just as those who stay together for a long time can drift apart, the question of how to peacefully separate is a political lesson that Chinese should study.
Martin Oei is a political commentator based in Hong Kong
Translated by Julian Clegg
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