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https://scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3191384/will-hong-kong-be-renamed-xianggang-its-mandarin-name-due
Magazines/ Post Magazine

Will Hong Kong be renamed Xianggang, its Mandarin name, in due course? Similar has happened before

  • Attempts in China to bury the past to fit the current political narrative saw the name ‘Manchuria’ officially retired
  • Only time will tell if ‘Hong Kong’ shape-shifts into ‘Xianggang, Asia’s World City’, with the old name relegated to ‘deprecated exonym’ status
National flags of Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state, await distribution in 1933. Manchuria existed as a country in its own right, both in premodern and more recent times. Photo: Getty Images

“What’s in a name?” Quite a lot, in the modern world – especially when these labels concern places and their populations, who currently rules them, who had political power in the past and what groups may harbour aspirations to re-exert that earlier authority at some future point.

Elimination, or, at the least, de­lib­erate minimisation, of earlier topo­nyms forms part of the current political campaign against “historical nihilism” – one of “the seven unmentionables” officially mandated against in 2013 by the Chinese Commu­nist Party as a drive against (allegedly Western) liberal values.

Thus, no version of the past can be permitted to compete with, contradict, challenge or potentially supplant officially mandated chronicles.

The long-term danger is obvious: if an alternative version is inherently compelling or – even worse – more closely aligns with provable historical facts, then the party’s grip on power may be weakened.

Any formerly widespread toponym that has fallen into official disapproval is known as a “deprecated exonym” – this lapidary term signifies the preferred mainland Chinese rebuttal for previously commonplace terms such as Manchuria, now replaced by Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces.

Often explained away as unwelcome legacies of foreign domination, less acknowledged are the potential threats to contemporary political agendas that older names can represent.

Official repudiation of long-accepted toponyms connects to closely guarded notions of territorial sovereignty, national integrity and – in lockstep with those concepts – ongoing retention of power by the group that currently holds it.

Manchuria, after all, was once a separate polity from the rest of the country. The last dynasty, let us not forget, hailed from this northeastern region, and until these invaders became fully Sinicised, the Manchu were regarded as foreigners and, by direct implication, barbarian inferiors to the Chinese over whom they ruled.

Until the Qing dynasty’s end, in 1912, Manchuria remained sparsely populated; permanent settlement by Han Chinese from elsewhere in the country was officially restricted.

This situation changed in succeeding decades; as in every other frontier region of China, from Tibet to Xinjiang, a deliberate policy of Han Chinese settlement to displace and outnumber the original inhabitants reduced the native Manchu to a minority group within their ancestral homeland.

The Japanese invasion of Manchuria, in 1931, was part of a progressive southwards grab for natural resources – the first stage of what culminated in the Pacific war.

Pu-yi (1906-1967), as Japanese puppet “Emperor of Manchukuo” (1932-1945), in military dress uniform, circa 1935. Photo: Getty Images
Pu-yi (1906-1967), as Japanese puppet “Emperor of Manchukuo” (1932-1945), in military dress uniform, circa 1935. Photo: Getty Images

In 1934, the Japanese declared Manchuria independent and installed Aisin-Gioro Puyi, the last Manchu emperor of China, as Emperor of Manchukuo. Ignored diplomatically by most powers – the Vatican was an exception – the country notionally existed until 1945. It had its own stamps – which the Universal Postal Union recognised as valid for external mail – currency, flag and head of state.

So, like it or not, Manchuria did indeed exist as a country in its own right, both in premodern and more recent times. Therefore, a movement to recreate that separate identity, in some form, might – perhaps – gain traction if a spark was ever allowed to catch fire.

Other, even more incendiary contemporary flashpoints exist. Formosa – another “deprecated exonym” – was for centuries the generally used term for Taiwan. First used by early Portuguese mariners, Ilha Formosa, which literally translates as Beautiful Island, suits the place well.

During the Cold War era, Formosa became a politically laden term generally deployed to signify political support for the Nationalist government, ousted from the rest of China by the Communist assumption of power, in 1949; it remains popular with contemporary Taiwan independence advocates.

Will Hong Kong, in due course, be replaced by Xianggang, with the old name relegated to “deprecated exonym” status? Such a dramatic toponymical change would delineate the ultimate convergence of “two systems” with “one country”. While both terms are simple transliterations of Fragrant Harbour, any controversy would originate from local resistance to more widespread introduction of Mandarin terms into everyday life.