No room for dual identity in one-party state's embrace
There is something that all one-party dictatorships have in common: an eventual resort to extreme nationalism to affirm their legitimacy, which in turn becomes their main means of rallying support to preserve the status quo.
It is in this light that we can clearly understand the heavy-handed intervention by Beijing into the controversy surrounding the University of Hong Kong opinion poll that showed that local people identified themselves more strongly as Hongkongers than as Chinese citizens.
There is nothing resembling a serious separatist movement in Hong Kong but the authorities in Beijing are ever vigilant in their attempts to ensure that not a hint of what is marvellously called 'splittism', in old Maoist-speak, rears its ugly head. So-called splittism is not merely a challenge to the unity of the nation but a direct threat to the rule of the Communist Party. Understand this - and it is understood in full technicolour in Beijing - and everything else becomes clear.
In theory, the Chinese Communist Party is a party with a fervent commitment to internationalism. Moreover, the party was founded under the guidance of foreigners. This is now obscured because it does not tally with the ultranationalism that has become the party's hallmark.
Occasionally, glimpses of its founding ideas are seen when The Internationale is sung at state events. Few people pay attention to the song's words about 'uniting the human race'. But they were sung with equal vigour in the old Soviet Union, on the barricades in the Spanish civil war and in every part of the world where the remnants of communist parties exist.
As in the old Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China is deeply troubled by the smallest indication that any of its component parts should be thinking of having a separate existence. This is most obvious when it comes to the central government's concerns over Tibet and Xinjiang but it also applies to Hong Kong.
In systems where democratic government prevails, different identities and even separate, autonomous political institutions are not seen as threatening.
In America, for example, many people will happily describe themselves as, say, Texans or New Yorkers and no one bats an eyelid. Moreover, a significant section of the population will always affirm a double-barrelled national identity, which makes them Chinese Americans or Irish Americans and so on. Anyone who turned on these people and tried to question their loyalty to the United States would be slapped down very quickly indeed.
However, in a one-party state there can be no ambiguity and, as time goes on, the leaders of the state increasingly drape themselves in the national flag and insist that there can be no qualification in the way that citizens identify themselves with the state, for fear that they might then start questioning the omnipotence of the ruling party.
Hong Kong occupies a special place in the Chinese state because it has a constitution that specifically bestows a 'high degree of autonomy', allows the Hong Kong special administrative region to display its own 'regional flag', and guarantees a separate social and economic system for at least 50 years.
It should be noted that on the mainland there are other so-called autonomous regions that have also been granted a slew of distinctive regional rights, but these have been eroded to exactly the same extent that similar rights were expunged in the old Soviet Union's system. Once the USSR collapsed, these national entities quickly split away and formed fully fledged independent states. This is precisely the nightmare that haunts the Beijing leadership.
So, Hong Kong is carefully watched for the smallest sign that it may not fully adhere to the nation, and the promises of the Basic Law are shoved into the background with the active connivance of SAR government leaders.
The heavy-handed attempts to ensure that Hong Kong people are every bit as subservient as their leaders can work two ways: either it succeeds or it provokes a backlash with unpredictable consequences.
Stephen Vines is a Hong Kong-based journalist and entrepreneur
