2022 will go down as the year of Hong Kong’s re-education

From children to civil servants, Beijing is determinedly teaching the Basic Law, constitution, national security – and that Hong Kong is an inalienable part of China
Such nation-building efforts are likely to intensify in the coming years as China looks to reshape Hong Kong in its image

Regina Ip

Published: 7:15am, 11 Dec 2022

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The year 2022 will go down in Hong Kong history’s as one of great significance. The city celebrated its 25th anniversary as China’s first special administrative region (SAR). The celebrations followed the Communist Party’s commemoration of its centenary last year.

For the first time since reunification, in June last year, about 70 government, political and community leaders were invited to Beijing to join the party’s celebration of China’s transformation into a modern, socialist state with Chinese characteristics.

The Communist Party used to keep a low profile in Hong Kong. Politicians took care to play down their party connections to avoid stoking Hong Kong people’s unease about communism.

But after the tumultuous events of 2019, leaders in Beijing cast off their shroud of secrecy and stepped up publicity on the party’s contributions to China’s modernisation and to ensuring Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability under “one country, two systems”.

As 2022 also marks the 40th anniversary of the enactment of China’s fourth constitution, Deng Zhonghua, president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, gave a keynote speech at a Constitution Day seminar organised by the Hong Kong government last week. In his speech, Deng stressed the authority and legitimacy of the 1982 constitution, drafted after two years of consultation throughout the country in a meticulous process not dissimilar to constitutional procedures adopted in many other countries.

Deng also stressed that it was Article 31 of the constitution, providing for the establishment of SARs, that enabled one country, two systems to be implemented in Hong Kong.

Luo Huining, director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, also gave a speech via videoconference at the Constitution Day seminar at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai on December 4. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Before this seminar, two senior officials from Beijing arrived in Hong Kong to promote understanding of the “spirit” of the 20th party congress. Hong Kong was urged to pay close heed to the central theme of President Xi Jinping’s report to the congress, which was to build China into a modern, “new era” socialist state with Chinese characteristics, and to join the rest of the nation on this grand, new journey.

And on the morning of December 7, after former paramount leader Jiang Zemin died, Hong Kong took part in the nationwide mourning.

But the hour-long ceremony, which comprised chiefly of Xi’s eulogy of Jiang’s achievements and reiteration of the party’s role in guiding the nation’s future, was more than just mourning. It was also about bringing people together, and reinvigorating the nation with Xi’s vision – of a China progressing on the back of technology and innovation, opening up and reforming, its people-based “whole-process democracy”, peaceful development and international cooperation.

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Xi Jinping pays tribute to late Chinese president Jiang Zemin at state funeral in Beijing

Such nation-building efforts are likely to intensify in the coming years. If any cynics are dismayed by China’s effort to reshape Hong Kong in its image, they should hark back to the prophetic words of the late Singaporean statesman Lee Kuan Yew.

Soon after June 4, 1989, Lee expressed “concern about the unanticipated upsurge of interest in Hong Kong in more rapid movements towards a more fully democratic system”, according to declassified British diplomatic reports. Lee said “the reality was that China could not accept what she regarded as subversion by certain political groups in Hong Kong”.

Michael Pike, then the British high commissioner in Singapore, in writing the report, added: “The Chinese regime would also reject any assertion of a separate, democratically-based, Hong Kong identity, as distinct from a Hong Kong which understood its role as part of China albeit a component with a high degree of autonomy.”

As Lee forewarned, on August 31, 2014, China drew a line in the sand and decided on the parameters for Hong Kong’s election of its chief executive by universal suffrage. Any such election would have to comply with the Basic Law, with China in firm control about who is to be in charge.

Lee spoke on Hong Kong’s transition on at least two public occasions. On the last, in October 1999, Lee showed a deep understanding of the identity issues, noting that many schools were reluctant to fly the national flag and many parents were edgy about their children singing the national anthem.

Lee said: “Hong Kong’s self-identity has to be defined and crystallised. You are a part of China, but for the next 38 years, you are a special subgroup known as the SAR Chinese, or Hong Kong Chinese. Unless you realise the importance of this issue, it will be difficult to forge that solidarity necessary for a new social compact between the SAR government and Hong Kong people.”

Lee was spot on about the only way to resolve Hong Kong people’s identity issues.

Before 2019, many Hong Kong officials were coy about acknowledging that Hong Kong belongs to China, that Hong Kong people have to come to terms with their identity as Hong Kong SAR Chinese. But the convulsions of 2019 jolted Beijing into action, and now national security education, education about China’s constitution and the Basic Law are core components of training for teachers, classes for civil servants and learning by students.

It remains to be seen whether hardcore drilling will succeed. Some Hongkongers uncomfortable with the identity change have left or will do so. Foreigners who treasure Hong Kong’s business opportunities and lifestyle and are unperturbed by the locals’ identity problems will carry on. Different choices will be made in accordance with the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Basic Law. But ultimately, Beijing will triumph, because Hong Kong is part of China, and that cannot be changed.

Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee is convenor of the Executive Council, a lawmaker and chairwoman of the New People’s Party