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Hong Kong localism, independence
Opinion

Hong Kong’s lost youth need help to see themselves in China’s future

Regina Ip says the generations of young people born of a hybrid East-West culture are now suffering an identity crisis that cannot be solved by simply mandating respect for the nation by law

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In the past 20 years, the Hong Kong SAR government has lost every battle to protect national security and enhance national identity. Photo: AP
Regina Ip
The rebellious behaviour of a small number of Hong Kong youths must have made nationalists in Beijing and Hong Kong hopping mad. A determined group of youngsters booed the national anthem again at a recent soccer match, despite the fact that the National People’s Congress had just decreed that the national law on the national anthem should be applied to Hong Kong.
Just ahead of the visit this month of Li Fei, China’s top legal official on Hong Kong affairs, to speak on the Basic Law, separatist groups distributed flyers advocating “Hong Kong independence” outside 20 schools. Li’s lecture calling for Hong Kong to honour its constitutional obligations triggered a protest outside Beijing’s representation last Sunday, albeit by a small group of about 50 rabidly anti-China demonstrators.

Recent statements by Beijing officials on Hong Kong’s need to fulfil its constitutional obligation to protect national security and enhance national identity clearly show that the central authorities are losing patience with the SAR government’s inability to enhance greater acceptance of the nation.

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National flags, emblems and anthems are rightly regarded by most countries as inviolable symbols of the nation. They represent the state, and the obligations the state expects of its people in reciprocation of the state’s protection.

Hong Kong youth dream of democracy, fairness and a greener world. So does China

In the past 20 years, the SAR government has lost every battle to protect national security and enhance national identity. That is not because Hong Kong people are unappreciative of the tremendous achievement of China’s leaders in modernising the country and catapulting it to a leading position in the global community, or ungrateful for the help Beijing has given Hong Kong whenever its small but open economy is mired in crisis.

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