HONG KONG – With each passing day, the border between Hong Kong and the rest of China is fading faster.
The Chinese Communist Party is rebuilding this city, permeating its once lively, irreverent character with ever more open signs of its authoritarian will. The structure of daily life is attacked as Beijing shapes Hong Kong into something more familiar, more docile.
Local residents are now teeming with police hotlines with reports of disloyal neighbors or colleagues. Teachers were told to fill students with patriotic zeal through 48-volume book sets entitled “My Home Is In China.” Public libraries have withdrawn dozens of books, including one on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.
Hong Kong has always been an improbability. It was a flourishing metropolis on a headland of inhospitable land, an oasis of civil liberties under iron rule. As a former British colony that returned to China in 1997, the city was promised freedom of speech, assembly and press unimaginable on the mainland in an agreement that Beijing called “one country, two systems”.
But under Xi Jinping, China’s leader, the Communist Party is fed up with Hong Kong’s dueling identities. For the party, they made the city unpredictable and even brought it to the brink of rebellion in 2019 when anti-government protests erupted.
Now, armed with the sweeping national security law it imposed on the city a year ago, Beijing is pushing to transform Hong Kong into yet another of its mainland megacities: economic engines that instantly stifle disagreements.
“Hong Kong people from all walks of life have also recognized that ‘one country’ is the foundation and foundation of ‘two systems’,” said Luo Huining, Beijing’s senior official in Hong Kong, this month.
Hong Kong today is a montage of unfamiliar and for many unsettling scenes. Police officers were goose-stepped in the Chinese military style, replacing decades of British-style marching. City guides regularly denounce “external elements” that seek to undermine the country’s stability.
Senior officials in Hong Kong have gathered with their hands raised to pledge allegiance to the country, just as mainland bureaucrats are regularly called to “biao tai”, Mandarin, to “express their position”.
When the government ordered ordinary employees to sign a written version of the oath, HW Li, a seven-year-old civil servant, resigned.
The new requirements not only require loyalty professions; they also warn of dismissal or other vague consequences in the event of violations. Mr. Li heard some supervisors nag their co-workers to fill out the form right away, and employees vie for how quickly they complied.
“The rules that should protect everyone – as employees and as citizens alike – are being weakened,” said Mr. Li.
In some corners of society the rules have been completely rewritten. However, Beijing denies failing to keep its promises to Hong Kong and insists on reiterating them.
When China revised Hong Kong’s electoral system to purge disloyal candidates, Beijing described the change as “Hong Kong’s perfecting electoral system.” When Apple Daily, a major pro-democracy newspaper, was forced to close after police arrested its senior executives, the party said the publication had abused “so-called freedom of the press”. When dozens of opposition politicians organized an informal pre-election, Chinese officials accused them of subversion and arrested them.
China’s power has become so ubiquitous that Chan Tat Ching, once a hero of the Hong Kong democracy movement, spent the past year urging his friends not to challenge Beijing.
Three decades ago, after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Chan, a Hong Kong businessman, helped direct an operation that smuggled students and academics from the mainland.
But Beijing is more demanding today than it was in 1989, Chan said. It had intimidated Hong Kong without even sending troops; that demanded respect.
He admitted that the security law was enforced too strictly, but said that nothing could be done.
“Some young people don’t understand. They think the Communist Party is a paper tiger, ”he said. “The Communist Party is a real tiger.”
China’s new power has also established itself in the Hong Kong business community. For decades, the mainland economy had tried to catch up with that of Hong Kong, the financial center so proud of its global identity that its government dubbed it “Asia’s metropolis.”
Now China’s economy is booming, and officials are increasingly turning Hong Kong’s global identity towards that one country.
Chinese state-owned companies have recently moved into offices in Hong Kong’s iconic skyscrapers that have been vacated by foreign banks. In November, Meituan, a Chinese grocer, ousted Swire, a British conglomerate, from the city’s main stock index. Financial analysts have called it the end of an era.
The rush on the mainland money has brought some new conditions with it.
After Beijing ruled that only “patriots” could run for office in Hong Kong earlier this year, the Bank of China International – a state-run institution – posted an advertisement for a director-level position stating that candidates should be “the country.” love”.
The central government is trying to convince Hong Kongers that the compromises on the mainland’s promise of prosperity are worthwhile. Officials encourage young Hong Kong residents to study and work in southern China’s cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou, saying that those who do not go risk missing out on opportunities.
Toby Wong, 23, grew up in Hong Kong and had never considered working on the mainland. Her mother came from the mainland for work decades earlier. The salaries there were significantly lower.
But recently, Ms. Wong saw a subway advertisement promoting open positions in Shenzhen, in which the Hong Kong government promised to subsidize nearly $ 1,300 from a $ 2,300 monthly wage – more than at many entry-level positions at home. A high-speed rail link between the two cities allowed her to return to her mother at the weekend, who has to support Ms. Wong financially.
Ms. Wong applied to two Chinese technology companies.
“It’s not a political question. It’s a practical question, ”she said.
After all, the government is hoping to make the motivation political. At the heart of Beijing’s campaign is an attempt to educate future generations who will never think of separating the party’s interests from their own.
China’s firm grip
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- Behind the Hong Kong acquisition: A year ago, the city’s freedoms were being curtailed at breakneck speed. But the crackdown took years and many signals were overlooked.
- Mapping China’s Post-Covid Path: China’s leader Xi Jinping tries to balance trust and caution as his country moves forward while other places continue to grapple with the pandemic.
- A challenge for US global leadership: As President Biden predicts a battle between democracies and their adversaries, Beijing seeks to defend the other side.
- ‘Red Tourism’ is flourishing: New and improved attractions dedicated to the history of the Communist Party, or an adjusted version of it, draw crowds ahead of the party’s centenary.
The Hong Kong government has issued hundreds of pages of new curriculum guidelines designed to “inspire affection for the Chinese people.” The geography class must confirm China’s control over the disputed areas of the South China Sea. Schoolchildren from the age of 6 learn the criminal offenses according to the Security Act.
Lo Kit Ling, who teaches a citizenship course at a high school, now makes sure to say only positive things about China in class. Although she has always tried to offer multiple perspectives on any subject, she feared that a critical perspective could be taken out of context by a student or parent.
Ms. Lo’s subject is particularly sensitive – city leaders have accused her of poisoning Hong Kong’s youth. The course had encouraged students to critically analyze China and convey the country’s economic successes alongside topics such as the Tiananmen Square raid.
Officials have ordered that the subject be replaced with an abbreviated version that emphasizes the positive.
“It’s not a class. It’s like brainwashing, ”said Ms. Lo. Instead, she will teach an elective in Hospitality Studies.
Not only school children are asked to watch out for dissenting opinions. In November, Hong Kong police opened a hotline to report suspected security law violations. “#YouCanHelp #SaveHK,” wrote the police on Twitter. An official recently applauded residents for leaving more than 100,000 messages in six months.
Constant neighborhood surveillance by informants is one of the Communist Party’s most effective tools for social control on the mainland. It’s supposed to keep people like Johnny Yui Siu Lau, a radio host in Hong Kong, from being so free in his criticism of China.
Mr. Lau said a producer recently told him that a listener reported him to the Broadcasting Authority.
“It will be a competition or a struggle to see how people in Hong Kong can protect freedom of expression,” Lau said.
Other freedoms that were once at the core of Hong Kong’s identity are disappearing. The government announced that it would censor films that are considered a threat to national security. Some officials have called for works of art by dissidents like Ai Weiwei to be banned from museums.
However, Hong Kong is not just another metropolis on the mainland. Residents have proven extremely reluctant to give up their freedom, and some have rushed to preserve totems of a discreet Hong Kong identity.
Masks labeled “Made in Hong Kong” are very popular. A local boy band, Mirror, has become a source of hope and pride as interest in canto pop resurfaces.
Last summer, Herbert Chow, who owns the children’s clothing chain Chickeeduck, installed a two-meter-tall protester figure – a woman with a gas mask and a protest flag – and other protest art in his shops.
But Mr Chow, 57, has come under pressure from his landlords, several of whom have refused to renew his leases. Last year there were 13 chickeeduck stores in Hong Kong; now there are five. He is unsure how long his city can withstand the burglaries of Beijing.
“Fear – it can make you stronger because you don’t want to live under fear,” he said. Or “it can kill your desire to fight.”
Joy Dong contributed to the research.
