Hong Kong is witnessing a harsh political winter as the territory’s Electoral Affairs Commission has banned six pro-independence activists from running for geographical constituencies in next month’s legislative election. The prescreening and censoring of candidates not only mocked the basic principle of universal suffrage, but also revealed serious structural problems that have haunted the territory’s political landscape since 1997.
Like it or not, the pro-independence aspirations of the activists, amounting to more than a mere political protest, have manifested themselves among young Hong Kongers. Growing up in the post-colonial era, many youngsters witnessed the rapid deterioration of Hong Kong from a British colony into a special administrative region under Chinese Communist Party rule (CPP). Worrying about “mainlandization” of the territory, they are aware of living in an insecure environment different from British Hong Kong.
As China begins to control the territory’s politics and eliminates any challenges perceived as subversive to the communist state, the cosmopolitan outlook of most Hong Kongers and their adherence to universal values prompt them to oppose the patriarchal, chauvinist and xenophobic sentiments typical of Mainland polity.
Against this background of political and cultural clashes, a new generation of young activists has emerged. They were part of the democratic struggles that motivated the months-long “Umbrella movement” in late 2014 and the “fishball revolution” on the Lunar New Year’s Day in February. Both campaigns pivot on the corruption of the local ruling elites and Beijing’s appointed political agents.
Identifying with a Hong Kong Cantonese culture with a British colonial heritage, six pro-independence candidates publicly rejected the efficacy of Chinese communism and Han cultural hegemony. They perceive the rise of China as an obstacle to Hong Kong’s democratization, because Beijing has recast the model of “one country, two systems” as a Confucian family-nation and has justified its interference in the territory’s internal affairs.
Searching for the local sensitivities in a uniquely Hong Kong context, these conscientious campaigners articulate a vision of grassroots identity against forceful assimilation into a Chinese hegemony.
However, Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-Ying (梁振英) has turned the policy of “one country, two systems” into a dangerous political weapon. He has declared war on pro-independence youth and their sympathizers.
The official ban of the six candidates is aimed at inculcating fear and submission by making an example of a few targets and destroying their public careers. In doing so, Leung has institutionalized a ruling hierarchy with Beijing as the absolute sovereign ruler, and is determined to silence any person who is critical of authoritarianism in the public domain.
This draconian system of exclusion works only when the CCP regime is dominant.
The convergence of democratic and pro-independence struggles in Hong Kong reminds people of a qualitative shift of Taiwanese cultural consciousness from a broader identification with China to the struggle for justice at home in the 1980s and 1990s.
For example, Frank Hsieh, (謝長廷), a human rights lawyer who later became a prominent leader of the Democratic Progressive Party and a former premier, published the journal the New Culture that criticized Chinese tradition as oppressive and blamed the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) discriminatory policy of favoring Mandarin over Taiwanese languages.
By rejecting the hegemony of Han culture, Taiwanese activists put their own nation at the center of public discourse and undermined the legitimacy of the Nationalist rule.
As the six pro-independence candidates are licking their wounds after their electoral disqualifications, they can move beyond the outdated framework of one “country, two systems” to configure an alternative political vision for the territory. After all, identity politics can be fought outside the ballot box.
Shattering the illusions of prosperity and stability under CCP rule, the political fiasco has sharpened the focus on an urgent struggle by Hong Kongers to emancipate themselves from disfranchisement by their governing elites and from further marginalization by China.
Joseph Tse-hei Lee is professor of history at Pace University in New York.
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