Kwok Bros’ Arrest: Whose Coup?

Does the fall of the Kwok brothers represent the revival of Hong Kong’s revered anti-corruption force, or the adoption of mainland-style power consolidation tactics by C Y Leung?

On 29 March, in its biggest coup in years, Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) arrested two members of the second wealthiest family in Hong Kong, property tycoon brothers Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong (郭炳江) and Raymond Kwok Ping-luen (郭炳联). More shocking, though less entertaining to the millions of Hong Kong citizens living in over-priced sub-divided apartments, was the arrest also of former chief secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan (许仕仁), the most senior ex-government official the ICAC has ever taken on.

On immediate reflection, there are several ways these arrests could be viewed.

1) Assuming complete independence of action by ICAC: simply as ICAC doing its job. 

2) Assuming ICAC is not confident enough to proceed with such a high-profile case without high level political support: as ICAC responding to the new political environment now that CY has won the Chief Executive (CE) race.

3) Assuming more agency on the part of the CE: as the removal of protection from the suspects, with the aim of firing a warning shot to show the tycoons who’s in charge now (or, less cynically, because criminals shouldn’t be protected on principle).

4) Also assuming CE agency in removing protection: as CY seizing an opportunity to at once impress certain individuals in Beijing, and also win back popular support in his home city.

So how is Hong Kong’s media reading it? Naturally, the ICAC is receiving praise for finally taking on a high-profile case after years of apparent decline. In absence of proof, there is a general reticence in assigning either credit or machiavellian scheming to “comrade Leung” (梁同志 pinyin: Liang tongzhi – CY’s nickname, due to his rumoured CCP membership), who is wisely keeping quiet on the topic. In true Hong Kong style, much of the coverage is focused on the impact on Sun Hung Kai share prices.

Up in Beijing, this story broke just days after Wen Jiabao had covened a State Council conference on anti-corruption work, at which he again emphasised the threat that corruption posed to the Party, though as usual omitted any suggestion of an anti-corruption body independent of the CCP. The Kwok brothers’ story received fairly prominent coverage in the Youth Daily, affiliated to Wen and Hu Jintao’s Youth League faction, while deep within the People’s Daily website was an article propounding the virtues of the ICAC as an institution. 

It would be fun to write a narrative wherein Wen Jiabao, having deposed Bo Xilai, is planning a full-on programme of political reform, at the heart of which would be a Hong Kong-style independent anti-corruption force (to work alongside the independent judiciary, of course). In this alternate reality, C Y Leung authorised the arrests, previously blocked by a tycoon-Donald Tsang nexus, as part of a coordinated drive to crack down on corruption and elitism, boosting support for mainland reformists.

That is of course nonsense. However, the timing of the arrests, just days after CY’s success in the CE race, does throw into question the complete independence of ICAC and allows the possibility of interpretations 2 to 4 above. Option 2 does not exactly allow great optimism for ICAC’s future. If you veer towards the last two, it suddenly all looks very much like a mainland-style power consolidation – boosting your own popularity while weakening opposing political factions. The logic used in mainland corruption crackdowns is as follows: corruption is endemic, but only the politically vulnerable fall.

Still, let’s remain optimistic and hope it is option 1.

Who’s the Most Popular Populist?

Bo’s attempt to outdo populist leaders Hu and Wen at their own game has failed, with the fallout from the factional clashes blowing into Hong Kong

This is a good time to be a China watcher. For a country whose leadership strives to keep conflict and machinations strictly behind the scenes, the rare moments when a tussle bursts out onto centre stage provide triangulation points to deduce what is going on behind the walls of Zhongnanhai (中南海).

Since the last post, shamed Chongqing (重庆) Party Secretary Bo Xilai (薄熙来) has been dismissed, and his future in the Party is uncertain. ‘Grandpa’ Wen Jiabao (温家宝) has spoken out again about the need for political reform. And Henry Tang has accused C Y Leung of calling for a crackdown on anti-Article 23 protestors in 2003. Bo, Wen and Leung have all been described as populists; Leung now joins Bo in being criticised as illiberal. How should we interpret their political stances, and what do their differing fates tell us about the dominant trends in Chinese politics?

It’s all about factions

To tell the story, we need to go back to the end of Jiang Zemin’s (江泽民) term. Jiang represents the elitist faction in Chinese politics, including the Shanghai Gang (mostly Jiang’s protégés) and some Princelings (children of the CCP old guard). At a time of rising inequality in China, the Hu-Wen administration (from the Communist Youth League (CYL) or 团派 tuanpai faction) replaced Jiang in 2003 on a ‘populist’ agenda, promising to address China’s east-west wealth gap and care for the vulnerable in Chinese society.

Under Hu and Wen, things began to implode politically for the Shanghai Gang, with Shanghai Party chief Chen Liangyu fired in 2006 and eventually imprisoned for his part in a major embezzlement scandal. Political analysts saw this as a major coup for the CYL power bloc within the Party. After years of resentment at Shanghai splashing out on endless prestige projects while inland regions struggled to develop, this meant that Hu and Wen entered their second term with relatively high public support, as well as weakened internal opposition.

A new kind of populist

Enter Bo Xilai, stage left. Bo, a princeling allied to the elitist faction, was appointed Chongqing Party Secretary in 2007. Hell-bent on a position in the 2012 Politburo Standing Committee, yet without the patronage of Hu and Wen, Bo chose to redefine ‘populism’ in Chinese politics. With his ‘singing red, fighting black’ (唱红打黑 changhong dahei) campaign, Bo first cracked down hard (and, some say, with scant regard for legal process) on corruption and the mafia, and later led a revival of Maoist nostalgia such as singing ‘red songs‘. This, along with increased public housing provision, appealed in particular to citizens disillusioned by the rampant corruption and inequality that had emerged in the reform era.

However, despite its leftist bent, Bo’s style of populism smacked of that employed by far-right groups in the west, appealing to anti-liberal sections of the population with its jingoist rhetoric and hard-line approach.

A coup for liberal reformers?

This difference between Wen Jiabao and Bo Xilai’s variants of populism became most apparent after Wen began talking more openly about political reform in 2010. While Wen’s commitment to serious political liberalisation is questionable based on his track record, from his speeches this week it is clear that he saw Bo’s Maoist nostalgia and hard-line crackdowns as a backwards step for a China which is committed, in word at least, to developing a law-based society and gradual political reform.

Bo’s fall demonstrates that Hu and Wen are still politically strong enough to eliminate a rival, even one who has won large-scale public support. Yet his replacement is a Jiang Zemin protégé, which shows that the balance of power approach (as described in detail by Cheng Li) goes on. Wen Jiabao can continue to wax lyrical about political reform, while allowing observers to blame conservative elites for lack of progress. The win-win (双赢 shuangying) situation is sustained.

Back to the Fragrant Harbour

So how do Tangtang and CY fit into all this? If Henry Tang is a very obvious elitist from Shanghai, why would Hu and Wen have supported him? If CY is a Bo Xilai-esque populist and hard-line leftist, how could they shift their support to him, as now seems to be happening? The first question comes down to power balancing, and the second to differences of scale between mainland China and Hong Kong.

While Hu and Wen are far from natural allies of Tang, allowing him the top spot would be an acceptable concession to the Shanghai Gang while also keeping the Hong Kong elite on-side. Lately, calculations of pros and cons have changed, so is CY an acceptable alternative?

Let’s assume that Henry was telling the truth about CY suggesting the need for a crackdown on Article 23 protestors. It seems doubtful that this would shock Hu Jintao, famous for overseeing one of the harshest ever crackdowns in Tibet in 1989 and one of the first to express support for the Tiananmen crackdown. More recently, Hu and Wen spent much of 2011 intimidating dissident artists, writers and lawyers to avoid the scent of jasmine wafting into Chinese territory.CY may be hard-line by Hong Kong standards. By Beijing standards, he’s a novice.

Equally, while CY may not be quite as in bed with the arch-capitalists of Hong Kong as Henry, he’s hardly going to kick off a red songs movement in Victoria Park. ‘Leftist’ is one of the most vague labels in use in Hong Kong. In fact, according to commentator Willy Lam, there are rumours that the Communist Youth League faction had secretly favoured CY for some time, and switched their support to him in the aftermath of the Henry disasters.

Xi Who Must Not Be Named

Finally, as an aside, let’s take a look at Xi Jinping. Xi’s light escape in all this is the one remaining façade of unity at the top of the CCP. Remarkably absent from much media coverage of Hong Kong’s quasi-electoral shenanigans has been discussion of Xi’s role, and responsibilities, as head of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. This is his turf, there is not even a pretence of impartiality any more, and it’s a shambles.

In a party that has been striving since Deng Xiaoping’s time to make leadership transitions smooth and predictable, the need to protect Xi Jinping’s reputation amid the turmoil may be the one thing the factions still agree on.

Lust, Caution

“Actually, Mr. Tang admitted to that quite a while ago.”

Thus did Rita Fan, foot firmly in mouth, appear yesterday to confirm rumours of Henry Tang’s UK love-child. The Ming Pao delighted in describing how reporters waylaid a bleary-eyed Ms. Fan as she stumbled from her Beijing hotel en route to the National People’s Congress, catching her off-guard.

She needn’t have worried, as Tangtang himself had already set internet forums buzzing in a TV appearance the day before. Rather than the usual ‘no comment’ on the love-child issue, in an apparent attempt to look sound noble he remarked that he “didn’t want to comment on rumours about third parties, as it would affect their lives, and he didn’t want them to get hurt.”

The only character in this farce succeeding in looking noble so far is Tang’s wife, Lisa Kuo (Bus Uncle‘s latest challenger in netizens’ fantasy Chief Executive race), whose dignified performance in a radio interview this morning prompted one netizen to compare her to legendary female warrior Mulan, who went to war on behalf of her father (thanks to newly discovered blog Dictionary of Politically Incorrect Hong Kong Cantonese for the link and translation).

Coming up: The Hong Kong Media Review will do its best to step back from the sordid yet entertaining details of Hong Kong’s quasi-election, and make some sense – if indeed possible – of how this fits into deeper Chinese political currents.

Bus Uncle for CE!

Just when you thought Hong Kong’s chief executive ‘election’ couldn’t get any weirder, local cultural phenomenon ‘Bus Uncle‘, AKA Roger Chan Yuet-dong, announces his candidacy.

Chan gained notoriety in 2006 when he was caught on camera going beserk at a fellow bus passenger, demanding an apology for a tap on the shoulder. He inspired mass debate about stress levels and etiquette in Hong Kong society, giving birth in the process to catchphrases such as “I’m stressed! You’re stressed!” (你有壓力，我有壓力, pinyin: Ni you yali, wo you yali) which teachers became so sick of hearing that they were banned in several schools.

He is running on a platform of giving 400,000 HKD to each person in Hong Kong, and promises that if he wins, Hong Kong people will be the ‘happiest urban residents in the world’ (世界上最幸福市民, pinyin: shijie shang zui xingfu shimin).

Unrealistic, vague promises from a complete joke of a candidate. Sounds strangely familiar…

Voting in the Unvotable

Did we imagine it? Browsing the People’s Daily (人民日报 Renmin Ribao – the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece) website, Hong Kong’s political turmoil is so conspicuously absent that it starts to feel like it was all some elaborate daydream. Coupled with images in the local media of a smiling Henry Tang officially registering as a Chief Executive candidate on Monday, tycoon supporters in tow, the sense of having toppled down a rabbit hole grows.

In case your head has been firmly in the sand for the last week or so: following a half-baked smear campaign against C Y Leung, Henry Tang’s rival in the Chief Executive (CE) race, the mud came flying back in Tang’s direction with reports of an illegally constructed underground room in one of his houses – now fondly referred to by the media as his ‘underground palace’. Just when he seemed to have hit a low, with indications of deliberate illegal activity on top of previous revelations of extra-marital affairs, Tang stooped lower still by blaming the whole thing on his long-suffering wife.

War horses and Wukan-isation

The commentaries from both sides of the Great Political Divide have been verging on the delusional. First up for the fantasy fiction prize is the Sharp Daily’s To Kit 陶杰 (pinyin: Tao Jie) in a 15 February commentary, ‘Hong Kong’s Grand Minister for Wukan-isation’, gisted below:

Beijing turns its back for a few days to deal with the scandal at the US consulate in Chongqing, and Hong Kong’s two main CE contenders are at each other teeth and claws. The C Y Leung camp’s counter-attack on Henry Tang has led to public calls for Tang to withdraw from the CE race, and the pro-establishment camp are left floundering with no signal as yet on how to vote.

If Henry has to withdraw due to his illegal building works, shouldn’t C Y also withdraw due to the Western Kowloon conflict of interest scandal? In which case, wouldn’t Albert Ho automatically win? Hong Kong has already gone off Beijing’s script, and C Y’s ‘battle for the people’s will’ could lead to a ‘Wukan-isation’ of Hong Kong at any moment, with a ‘democratic village chief’ emerging who Beijing  is forced to recognise. Under this freak outcome, Hong Kong and Wukan would become a pair of ‘war horses’ for bringing about the democratisation of China.

Heading through the next looking glass into the harmonious world of the pro-establishment Wen Wei Po, Wednesday’s headline read ‘Henry Tang: Broad Nomination Base Shows Support From All Sectors.’

“Henry Tang indicated that his nominations from the Election Committee, which were quite broadly representative, showed that he had the full support of society.”

This despite some opinion surveys indicating that over half of Hong Kong people think he should step down. Then again, anyone familiar with Hong Kong politics knows that ‘broad support of society’ is one of the city’s most loosely used terms.

So, unthinkable as it should have been, it looks as though the hapless Mr. Tang could be pushed through regardless. What of the much-touted requirement of acceptability to the Hong Kong people? Perhaps through this particular looking glass, the onus is on the people to find their leader acceptable, not on the leader to make himself so.

The Language Pages Are Up!

I’ve finally made a start on two new language pages, 1) Glossary of Chinese Names and 2) Buzzwords and Idioms. They’re still in development, so comments on format/usefulness would be very welcome.

Tinker, Tailor, Hero, Traitor?

Nobody’s sure what the truth behind Chongqing gang-buster Wang Lijun’s (王立军) Beijing ‘vacation’ really is. But whatever the case, it is bad news for Bo Xilai’s (薄熙来) Politburo prospects.

The microblog rumour mill has been in overdrive for the last week, with the intriguing tale of Wang Lijun, former superstar police chief under Chongqing Party boss/professional self-promoter Bo Xilai. Wang took refuge in a US consulate, before being whisked off to Beijing amidst a scuffle between Sichuan police and central authorities. For a good overview of the story so far, see the China Digital Times’ coverage here.

While I enjoy a good scandal as much as the next person, with so little known I am choosing instead to focus on the wider political ramifications of the event. Crucially, this has been a huge loss of face for the populist Bo Xilai, who had hoped to ascend to the shining ranks of the Politburo Standing Committee at this autumn’s Party Congress. Ming Pao 明报 commentator Sun Ka-yip (孫嘉業, pinyin: Sun Jiaye) links Bo Xilai’s woes with recent attacks on Hong Kong Chief Executive hopeful C Y Leung (梁振英, pinyin: Liang Zhenying). In the following article, he interprets both cases as a Party backlash against those who dare to seek promotion based on popular support, rather than (presumably) inner-Party bootlicking. If correct, this offers an interesting insight into how much the CCP values ‘the will of the people’ (民意 minyi): in ascending the ranks, subservience to the Party centre still comes first, popularity a poor second.

CY Leung and Bo Xilai’s Political Troubles (Ming Pao, 14/02/2012)

“CY Leung and Bo Xilai, one a Hong Kong political figure, the other a senior CCP official; one from Shandong, the other Shanxi; CY is year of the Horse, Bo Xilai is year of the Ox. You could say that “the horse and the cow in heat do not look at each other” [风马牛不相及feng ma niu bu xiang ji, i.e. they have nothing in common]; yet the two men do have many similarities. Both are part of the establishment, yet their actions seem to be somewhat at odds with standard establishment behaviour. This year is a key year for both men, but both are currently encountering political difficulties…

C Y Leung broke with the establishment norm of putting forward just one candidate for the Chief Executive election [sic], and deviated from the … [norm] of focusing on winning over the election committee, going instead for the grassroots vote, … raising eyebrows among many businesspeople and government officials, until at last the government revealed a decade-old issue involving integrity in judging a competition in West Kowloon, and his response is looking weak.

When Bo Xilai was sent to take over Chongqing four years ago, it was thought that he had been removed from the centre of power and marginalised, but he surprised us by refusing to be packed off. On the contrary, he went against the iron rule within CCP circles of adopting a low-key, restrained attitude of ‘people should fear fame, as pigs fear fattening’, with his ‘singing red, fighting black’ [唱红打黑 changhong dahei = singing revolutionary ‘red’ songs and fighting the ‘black hand’ of the mafia]. This went on and on, until the ‘Chongqing model’ had attracted a certain popularity in the Mainland, but then suddenly disaster struck, with his beloved general Wang Lijun entering the US consulate. The incident is still playing out, and as for Bo Xilai’s chances of entering the Politburo Standing Committee at the 18th Party Congress, everyone is keenly looking on to see if this cooked duck will be able to fly.

I’m not sure which animal metaphor I enjoyed the most.

A new era of political reform? Whatever

If there’s one thing we’ve seen from the last couple of posts, it’s that Hong Kongers quite enjoy a dig at their Mainland compatriots. You might conclude that they also enjoy reading the many anti-CCP magazines stacked across the city’s news stands, complete with paparazzi-style cover photos of Politburo members caught off-guard.

You would be wrong. Your average Hong Kong newspaper reader could not give two hoots about the latest political machinations of the various CCP factions. These magazines are written for, and bought by, mainland visitors. It’s important to bear this in mind when reading them, because while they fulfil a valid desire for uncensored political analysis, they also cash in on a desire to see two fingers stuck up at the Chinese regime. Please administer salt as required.

The Cheng Ming Monthly 争鸣 is just such a publication. In February’s opening piece, ‘The “Four Whatevers” must be smashed’,* the author calls for Deng Xiaoping’s ideas to be abandoned once and for all in what he hopes will be a new era of political reform.  A gist follows:

China is at a junction between the second and third 30-year periods in its modern history. The first period was Mao Zedong’s time, by the end of which Mao Zedong Thought had been thoroughly discredited. The second era was Deng Xiaoping’s time, when economic reforms were brought in to save the country, and the Party itself, from ruin.

It is now the end of the road for Deng Xiaoping thought. It is getting harder to maintain stability through violence and lies, and corruption has become endemic. Conflicts between people trying to protect their rights and officials trying to maintain stability are erupting everywhere. China is a pot about to boil over.

The Wukan incident of 2011 shows how conflicts can be resolved when the authorities make concessions. This is what needs to happen in the next period of political reform: The CCP needs to cede some of its power. But who would give up power willingly? The people need to continue to put pressure on the authorities, in order to avoid revolution, for the good of both the country and the Party itself.

The intellectual prelude to reform has already begun. There needs to be a new thought liberation movement, like the one that preceded Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. This time it needs to throw out Deng Xiaoping Thought, because strengthening one-party rule was at the root of all Deng Xiaoping’s ideas – even the economic liberalisations.

I first saw reference to 30 year periods in modern Chinese history after Wen Jiabao’s (温家宝) August 2011 speech on political reform, coming as it did 30 years after a landmark speech by Deng Xiaoping (邓小平) which set China decisively onto a track of economic reforms. I’m somewhat surprised to see a commentator in 2012 still talking as if the next era of political reform is just around the corner, given that 2011’s crackdown on dissidents has done little to lend weight to the idea. The perceived success of the Wukan villagers is already being called into question, and there is little evidence that democracy in China will go beyond Wen’s warm and fuzzy Internet chat with the people once a year.

Still, if you’re a pro-democracy Chinese citizen you seem to have the choice between optimism verging on delusion, or despair. I have to respect the optimists.

*A link to a note on the ‘Four Whatevers’ and other political terminology will follow soon.

Racism without races

What links:

1. Donald Tsang’s promise to limit mainlanders’ contribution to Hong Kong’s high anticipated birth rates in the Dragon Year;

2. theoretical wrangling over Hong Kongers’ sense of identity (see last post); and

3. thousands of protestors encircling Dolce and Gabbana’s Tsimshatsui store to defend Hong Kong’s public spaces?

According to Denny from the independent media outlet InMedia, they all boil down to Hong Kongers’ peculiar mix of superiority, insecurity and above all animosity towards mainlanders. In his editorial, Local war of words and the locust concept, he questions the motives behind the D&G protests, asking why crowds didn’t gather to protest previous infringements of public space, such as a ban on painting in public parks? To him, the discourse says it all:

“… Some voices online complain that ‘there are no Cantonese people on Canton Road, and only Beijingers on Beijing Road.’ … If hoardes of white people used Canton Road, we’d probably be vaunting it as an area with a trendy mix of Chinese and Westerners, enjoying a sense of Hong Kong’s superiority as a world city. No matter where you stand with regard to the current cacophony of controversies, none of us can deny that the issue is closely related to Hong Kong people’s anxiety over their identity.

With public sentiment raging, the whole of Hong Kong is talking about the so-called plague of locusts… [emphasis added]”

The concept of a plague of locusts is the idea that mainlanders are flooding Hong Kong in the post-handover period, over-stretching housing, medical and other resources that have been built up by hardworking, tax-paying Hong Kong citizens. The author quite rightly argues that the use of what he describes as “racist” stereotyping prevents sensible discussion of the issues behind these controversies. For example, people could instead be debating Mainland China’s one child policy or why a city as wealthy as Hong Kong has insufficient medical resources.

He suggests that the situation in Hong Kong reflects what French philosopher Balibar described twenty years ago as a new “racism without races”, which plays down biological differences to emphasise the idea of incompatible cultures.

Another interesting concept Denny mentions is the “Hong Kong City State Theory”, as advocated in a recent book of the same name by Chan Wan (陳雲). To the consternation of pro-Beijing commentators, this proposes that Hong Kong should view itself as an ancient Greek-style city state, defending its own values, culture and political system, and not waiting around for the rest of China to democratise.

Whether it expresses itself as defence of a democratic way of life, unwillingness to share stretched resources, or “racism without races”, this insecurity felt by many Hong Kongers as it integrates further into Guangdong province has probably not yet peaked.

As Hong Kong’s media workers are off enjoying illegal explosives and other festivities this week, the next update to this site will involve developing some language pages.

 

 

Identity Crisis

Delving into the earliest editorials and opinion pieces of 2012, first up for review is the recent bickering over Hong Kong people’s sense of identity. This was sparked by the public opinion survey results released in December by Dr. Robert Chung Ting-yiu, who runs Hong Kong University’s Public Opinion Programme (POP). The soundbite to emerge from December’s results was that locals’ sense of being ‘Hong Kong people’ was at a ten year high, while their sense of being ‘Chinese people’ hit a twelve year low.

The story probably would have fizzled out after a day or two, had it not been for one Hao Tiechuan of Beijing’s Central Liaison Office (CLO) fanning the flames. Mr. Hao lambasted Dr. Chung’s survey as being both unscientific and illogical. Cue pro- and anti-Beijing commentators to take up rhetorical arms for an entrenched war of words:

Next Magazine 壹周刊 dives straight in with an indignant counter-attack entitled CLO violates Basic Law (link is subscription only):

“…it states unequivocally in Article 22 of the Basic Law that: ‘No department of the Central People’s Government … may interfere in those affairs which the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) administers on its own according to the Basic Law.’ This includes the CLO, so why do we have Director Hao pointing fingers at a survey conducted by a university and talking nonsense?

And unfortunately, attacking a university survey as unscientific was not the first instance of the CLO contravening the Basic Law. In August of last year a deputy-director of this office, Li Guikang, even more brazenly interfered in the legislative process, openly calling on those in business circles to support the passing of the competition law ‘in the name of the big picture and unity, as well as its content’. Then during November’s District Council Elections, the CLO went on to join hands with the CCP’s United Front Work Department to ‘do work on’ Hong Kong’s representatives to the provincial and municipal Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conferences (CPPCCs), organising pools of voters for each district, in fact ‘cultivating votes’…

… The CLO and the United Front Work Department are not the only Central Government organisations that have interfered in Hong Kong’s affairs. Last year, head of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office Wang Guangya, when he had only been in office for a short time, decreed that the SAR Government should resolve the inflation and housing problems, causing an overseas Donald Tsang to hurriedly change his stance and announce that more houses would be built.

What is hard to stand is that this slavishness reflects and proves Wang Guangya’s [power over] Hong Kong officials…”

Moving swiftly on from mouth-frothing disgust at the establishment to mouth-frothing disgust at, apparently, Dr. Robert Chung’s weak grasp of the Ancient Greeks’ laws of logic, we have the solidly pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po 文匯報. CPPCC delegate Long Ziming, whose surname translates as dragon, gives us the rather self-importantly titled The dragon’s voice rises up: Making a distinction between Hong Kong people and Chinese people is illogical.

“Mr. Robert Chung’s categorisation of Hong Kong people in his opinion survey is completely illogical. From the perspective of the law of identity as used in logic, when applying a concept, the concept’s intension and extension are fixed, and cannot change at will. If you violate this requirement, then you commit the fallacy of ‘confusing concepts’ or ‘surreptitiously substituting concepts’. ‘Hong Kong people’, ‘Chinese Hong Kong people’, ‘Hong Kong Chinese people’ all fall under the category of ‘Chinese people’. By not putting these all at the same level, Mr. Robert Chung’s categorisations divide a group of people who all fall into the same category into different categories, so changing at will the concept’s intension and extension, and violating logic’s law of identity. In setting Hong Kong people and Chinese people in juxtaposition and opposition, the survey also shows contempt for the feelings shared by Hong Kong and mainland people of commonality and blood ties.”

[Translator’s note: If you’re as lost as I was, you can read more on the law of identity, as well as the definitions of intension and extension here.] The above points are then expanded on for some time, until at last theoretical discussion of logic gives way to a more emotive argument:

“Looking back at the last 14 years, Hong Kong people have been identifying themselves more and more as Chinese people and part of the Chinese nation. When the Shenzhou spacecraft was launched, when the ‘Chang E’ flew to the moon, when Shenzhou-8 completed a space-docking mission with Tiangong-1, and when China successfully hosted the Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai World Expo, Hong Kong was cheering for the motherland, and these things made Hong Kong people’s identity as Chinese people more prominent. When the Mainland was devastated by floods, shaken by earthquakes, and great numbers of people were suffering, because blood is thicker than water, Hong Kong people were moved to tears and held out a sympathetic hand, working to alleviate the disasters – this is because their identity as Chinese people made Hong Kong people feel honour-bound to help.”

And as with all good pro-establishment commentaries on Hong Kong, the article is neatly rounded off with some sticks and carrots:

“As China’s economy has taken off, cooperation between Hong Kong and the Mainland has become increasingly close in all kinds of ways, and it is only by integrating into China that Hong Kong will have yet more potential for development. If it does not recognise the nation, how can Hong Kong develop?”

I’m handing the last word to an editorial from the Asia Weekly 亚洲周刊, because it actually addresses the issue of Hong Kong people’s feelings towards China. Like Mr. Long, the author cites instances of Hong Kong people showing their support for events in the motherland… but is just a little less politically correct in his selection. Hong Kong people’s Chinese sentiment goes beyond the ruling Party:

“From the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 to the Guangdong-Hong Kong strike of 1925-6, from the War of Resistance against the Japanese (1937-45) to the demonstrations in defence of the Diaoyu Islands of 1971, and to the Tiananmen incident of 4th June 1989, Hong Kong people have always vigorously participated [in Chinese affairs]. Who could dare to say that Hong Kong people do not identify themselves as Chinese? …

During Hong Kong’s gradual evolution in modern Chinese history, the pulse of Hong Kong society has never separated from that of China, and Hong Kong people’s identification with China goes beyond partisan affiliations. Perhaps in recent years an increasing number of human rights problems have left people unhappy with ‘China’, while there have also been setbacks to Hong Kong’s democratic development. As a result, in a historical context where the ruling party has monopolised the ‘China’ brand, all this has caused severe national identity issues for Hong Kong’s younger generation.

As Mainlanders often say: ‘The Party’s policies are like the moon, different at the start and the end of the fortnight.’ The governing party’s power may be usurped, and policies are even more fluid, but the country and the culture are eternal. If some Hong Kong people feel conflicted, then it is just because they have to face the hegemony of a party that wants to merge the party and the country, and monopolise the ‘China’ name. Do you really have to identify with the CCP in order to identify with China? According to that logic, could you claim that Chiang Kai-shek, who saw the CCP as his life-long enemy, was not Chinese?”

Gong hei faat choi.