A Chinese couple’s decision to let their young child urinate in public last month set off a video-recorded tussle on a street here, igniting a social media uproar that became a proxy battle for a larger question: Is Hong Kong, a former British colony, now being colonized by China, whose visitors increasingly flood the territory with their money and alien manners as Beijing seeks to impose its political control?
The video started a cross-border debate over Beijing’s dominance of the territory and Hong Kong’s fealty to its political overlord, and came just as China is considering whether to grant Hong Kong more say over choosing its leaders, with protest groups prepared to act if China does not loosen its grip.
In the video, the toddler’s parents confronted a man who used his cellphone to video the child. After the mother was said to be trying to steal the man’s cellphone, the Chinese parents accused him of perversion for making the video, and then veered into a larger indictment of Hong Kong residents as lacking patriotism for being inhospitable to the tens of millions of Chinese whose money fuels the territory’s robust economy.
The argument about the child’s behavior comes as local attitudes toward Beijing appear to be hardening. A poll of Hong Kong residents conducted in December last year by the Hong Kong Transition Project and released on Tuesday last week showed rising dissatisfaction with Beijing’s handling of the territory’s affairs, particularly among young adults, with four-fifths of respondents aged 21 to 29 saying they were dissatisfied, and a strong majority of them identifying more with Hong Kong than with China.
Underlying local hostilities toward Chinese are the economic pressures brought by a flood of cash into the territory. Not only are wealthy Chinese accused of driving up real-estate values, but their free-spending ways — encouraged by the absence of sales taxes in Hong Kong and favorable long-term currency valuations — have been blamed for widespread inflation.
The minimum wage is about US$4 an hour, but prices for common household goods approach those found in a New York City supermarket.
Rachel Cartland, a former Hong Kong official who once oversaw its social welfare system, likened the antagonism Chinese encounter to that found by tourists from the US during the post-World War II years in Europe, when that country swaggered with political and economic clout, much as China does in Asia today.
“America was very dominant politically and economically, and their tourists were often unfairly regarded as ‘ugly Americans,’” she said.
The recording of the child’s behavior was the latest in a string of videos and pictures that have documented questionable behavior, with Web pages like “Spot the Mainlander” drawing angry, mocking commentary. With so many Chinese tourists traveling throughout Asia and elsewhere, China’s government recently issued guidelines on how to behave abroad that included tips like refraining from spitting on the street or from shouting in public areas.
The incident involving the child is two weeks old, but the passions surrounding it are not dying down. Last week, a protest against Chinese behavior drew 30 people who mimicked the toddler’s act; social media sites said a counterdemonstration was in the works by people who planned to relieve themselves in the street. Even the prospect of such a protest led to warnings from local officials.
“The law in Hong Kong prohibits anyone from littering or urinating in public,” Hong Kong Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man (高永文) said. “I am not criticizing any race or nationality. The law and this principle will be implemented fairly.”
On Wednesday, in a reflection of concern in Beijing about the passions in Hong Kong, the state-run media in China chimed in. The Global Times newspaper said in an opinion piece that “skinheads” had organized last week’s protest and that “in Hong Kong social media, slapstick postings about ‘toddlergate’ are going viral again.”
“This incident, which should have been over and forgotten, was surprisingly reignited by some Hong Kong radicals,” the piece said. “Humiliating mainlanders must be the only aim these protesters were trying to achieve, but it turns out that who they embarrassed and humiliated was nobody but themselves and all of Hong Kong society. Hong Kong’s image was badly tarnished by them.”
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