In China’s embrace, Hong Kong people face a stark choice: money or freedoms

Michael Chugani says with the mainland drawing Hong Kong closer every day, Hongkongers who seize the huge economic opportunities on offer must realise they may also have to give up personal freedoms

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A tunnel leading to Hong Kong is part of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge project. The sell-by date of saying we don’t want Hong Kong to be just another Chinese city has long passed. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 5:15pm, 18 Apr 2018Updated: 8:08pm, 18 Apr 2018

We know mainland China is intent on drawing Hong Kong closer to it, but has that process accelerated? I asked myself this after Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor used Mandarin at a national security forum last Sunday. Maybe she shunned Cantonese in deference to Beijing’s liaison office boss Wang Zhimin. But it jolted me into realising we need to wake up and smell the change.

A local think tank organised the forum. It was held in Hong Kong. Shouldn’t Lam have chosen the dialect of Hongkongers even though Wang understandably used Mandarin? But we’re now living in a Hong Kong very different from that of just a year ago. And you can bet next year’s Hong Kong will be even less recognisable.

The sell-by date of saying you don’t want Hong Kong to be just another Chinese city has long passed. We’re already halfway there. You’re living in la-la land if you believe “one country, two systems” and 2047 were meant as buffers.

Beijing never intended Hong Kong to be a part of China in name only, letting it retain all the trappings of a British colony. Sculpting the city to fit into the national character was always part of its plan. The question was at what pace.

It was gradual and unobtrusive at first. But then came the Occupy uprising, localism, the independence movement, booing of the national anthem, and Benny Tai Yiu-ting’s thoughtless talk in Taiwan of independence. Yes, it was free speech and I will defend his right to it, though not necessarily to the death. But he exercised it in the wrong place at the wrong time.