In his maiden policy address, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa repeated his call for Hong Kong people to deepen their understanding of Chinese history and culture and pledged to channel resources to the achievement of this aim.
Mr Tung's rationale can be easily understood. With the change of sovereignty, Hong Kong people need to attain a sense of belonging to China so as to strengthen their reunion with the motherland.
What is unclear is how Mr Tung can put his thinking into action.
More precisely, by talking about deepening our understanding of Chinese history and culture, what means has Mr Tung got in mind to help raise our ethnic consciousness? In his speech Mr Tung provided no specific answers but within the community different suggestions have been put forward - the promotion of Chinese arts, maintaining good Chinese traditions and practices, showing movies about China, holding of seminars and pursuing mother-tongue education.
All those suggestions are commendable but, realistically, they alone are not enough to imbue Hong Kong people with a genuine sense of belonging to China.
To build up a strong foundation for Hong Kong people to identify themselves as part of China, we have to be able to know both the good and bad about our motherland and we to judge independently the principles and policies advocated and implemented by the Chinese government.
Recently, a columnist in a Chinese daily paper was lamenting China's unwillingness to give its people the full picture of modern Chinese history.