It’s an open question
how much energy the demonstrations in Hong Kong draw from a desire for
democracy. After all, Hong Kong has
never experienced democracy over the last two hundred odd years, which hasn’t
seemed to hurt it too much as it galumphed its way into prosperity as a British
and then Red Chinese colonial enclave.
But what is undeniable
is the energy that the demonstrations derive from a sense of alienation from the
People’s Republic of China, fueled by political and economic discontents,
perhaps, but also by a growing sense for many younger people of local lineage
that they are “Hong Kongers” not “Chinese”, and they can’t be bossed around by
Beijing.
Even before the current
ruckus, about half of residents identified themselves as exclusively “Hong
Kongers”; expect that number to rise ineluctably as the population that grew up
as “Chinese” under British colonialism fades away.
Increased economic
integration with the mainland has not eroded Hong Kongers’ local identity in
favor of “we’re all Chinese” kumbaya.
Just the opposite.
The ugly and problematic face
of Hong Kong democracy agitation is local chauvinism, expressed as detestation
of the hundreds of thousands of mainland “locusts” who descend on the city to
offend locals with their uncouth behavior, birth their children in Hong Kong
hospitals to gain resident privileges, drive up real estate prices, compete for
jobs—and pump billions into the local economy.
The emergence of a
distinct local identity for ethnic Chinese is characteristic of communities in
places like Singapore and Taiwan which, like Hong Kong, are somewhat beyond the
reach of the PRC and its homogenizing doctrine of ethnic solidarity.
In Taiwan, about half the
population self-identifies as Taiwanese and the other half self-identifies as
Chinese-Taiwanese. Those who identify as
exclusively Chinese and presumably represent the core constituency for
reunification has dropped from 50% in the 1990s to the low single digits
today.
The most worrying consequence
of the ruckus in Hong Kong for its Communist masters, I think, may not be
“democratic contagion”. To be sure, in
the relatively unlikely event that the CCP capitulates to the Hong Kong
demonstrators’ main demand—that the nomination as well as election process for
city offices be conducted through universal suffrage voting—pro-democracy
activists on the mainland would be emboldened and create awkward moments for the
PRC.
However, I believe a more
pressing problem might be “chauvinism contagion”, the encouragement that the
ongoing demonstrations in Hong Kong give to resisting ethnic
groups.
There are interesting
parallels between the deep reservoirs of anti-PRC resentment and local
chauvinism among the people of Hong Kong and Xinjiang. In both cases, there is perhaps less
resistance to the nature of PRC rule i.e. the absence of democracy, than there
is to the legitimacy of PRC rule itself.
The historically
autonomous Uyghur communities of Xinjiang were only rolled into China in the
1950s and a closer relationship to the PRC has actually accelerated the
formation of Uyghur identity, nationalism and, after the dissolution of the
Soviet Union, a feeling among many that the Uyghurs have been jobbed out of
their own stan by the PRC.
In a similar fashion, I would
say, the less direct but still unmistakable imposition of PRC rule—which only
rolled in in 1997--has fostered strong feelings of Hong Kong identity which
provide energy to the democracy movement, and also fuel the less edifying
phenomenon of anti-mainlander chauvinism.
It may be that, in fact,
democracy is secondary to the desire of young Hong Kongers for their own
“Hongkongistan”.
In his book “The Uyghurs:
Strangers in Their Own Land” (Columbia University Press New York 2010), Gardner
Bovingdon discussed the interesting phenomenon of nascent Uyghur-Hong Kong
solidarity which, in 1997, ran only from west to east:
“In the spring of 1997, many Uyghurs brought up the wish for
independence as Hong Kong’s retrocession approached. It seems quaint…but there was a widespread
belief…that Britain would not relinquish its colony without a fight. Xinjiang was rife with rumors that Uyghur
organizations were preparing to take advantage of the ensuing chaos to stage a
military uprising. …a baker told me
cheerfully…that Xinjiang would soon be independent…a group of taxi drivers
predicted to me at curbside that July would bring independence; and a gathering
of police spent several hours alternately lamenting Xinjiang’s colonization by
China instead of the Soviet Union and speaking hopefully about the possibility
that the rumors of a planned uprising were true…Hong Kong’s peaceful
retrocession seemed to take many people by surprise. The morning after Hong Kong’s return…I sat
with a group of students utterly sick at heart that nothing had happened the
night before…”
Now, seventeen years later,
Hong Kong has caught up with Xinjiang!
And, I would imagine that
today, as news about Hong Kong trickles into Xinjiang, the excitement among
Uyghurs—and the anxiety of the CCP—is palpable.
I would also imagine that the
CCP recognizes that “one-person-one-vote-itis” might not represent as big a
threat to its rule as the perception that the basic legitimacy of its rule is
being challenged by profoundly alienated groups that are “unidentifying” as
“Chinese” and choose to express their opposition through the medium of
democratic agitation against an alien occupation.
The idea that the fundamental
legitimacy of CCP rule is under threat—that the CCP in danger of losing its
intimidating mojo, participation in the PRC polity is starting to look more like
an option and less than an obligation, and forcefully asserting the CCP monopoly
of power to potentially disaffected groups throughout China has become a
pressing state priority—might, in my opinion, be more likely to send the PLA
trundling into Admiralty than fantods about democracy.
This kind of
disaffection,whether in Xinjiang or Hong Kong, can’t be handled only with APCs
and mass detentions.
In Xinjiang, the PRC is
trying to uproot Uyghur particularism with assimilation: a campaign that
combines education and indoctrination of children, economic development,
co-option and splitting of Uyghur community leaders, and, of course, APCs and
mass detentions.
One of the key tools is
Mandarin education, so that Uyghur children will be drawn into the Han matrix
and lose more of their nettlesome Uyghur identity.
However, assimilation and
papering over linguistic and communal differences is not just a preoccupation of
Chicoms clinging to power; it's a major governing strategy of governments
throughout the Chinese diaspora.
To return to what is perhaps
the PRC's most pressing problem of integration and assimilation outside of Hong
Kong, in the remote regions of China’s west, interestingly enough, the PRC is
replicating the assimilatory strategy of one of the world’s most advanced
Chinese-led polities—the city of Singapore.
Singapore has presided
over a long term campaign of national redefinition, which has not only used
specifying English as the primary language in order to supersede the ethnic
identities of Singapore’s Chinese, Indian, and Malay residents; it has also
mandated Mandarin as the second language as part of a campaign to manage
conflicts between Singapore’s various Chinese ethnicities—particularly between
Hokkienese and Techeowese—through a program of indoctrination and Mandarin
instruction that has weakened ethnic particularism and, with it, some of the
Chinese cultural identity within the China diaspora groups.
It is perhaps noteworthy that
Singapore—the Chinese city state powerhouse is presumably the object of the
admiration and potential emulation for independence-minded Hong Kongers--does
not seem terribly happy with Hong Kong’s ｅxpression of assertiveness.
Presumably this has to do
with the ruling PAP’s strong preference for managed democracy and abhorrence of
political demonstrations organized by competing parties; it might also have
something to do with anxieties over the potential for overt displays of
resentment by Singapore’s alienated 15% minority of ethnic Malays who, like
Xinjiangers, probably feel like “strangers in their own land”; but it also may
have something to do with discomfort with Hong Kong chauvinism and the challenge
it offers to its assimilatory vision.
Anger at the Mandarin menace
is, of course, a staple of Hong Kong identity politics, especially as continued
economic integration with the mainland has led to Mandarin supplanting English
as Hong Kong’s second language. One of
the gripes about Chief Executive C.Y. Leung was that he was the first CE to
deliver his inaugural address in Mandarin.
Here’s a post describing the anger of Hong Kong university students that
mainlanders’ calls for Mandarin instruction were being accommodated by a
professor; it also includes an illustration of a poster deploring the
“mainlandization” of Hong Kong university education and the damage it did to the
graduate study (it claims 70% of Hong Kong graduate students are mainlanders)
and employment prospects of native Hong Kong university students.
There is, of course, a
limited window for asserting the political prerogatives of Hong Kongers.
Of course, it also must be
noted that the ethnic particularism problem doesn't end there.
Cantonese particularism,
along with Hakka particularism, based on the distinctiveness of southern ethnic,
linguistic, and cultural identity from the north, has been a headache for CCP
control and is a historical and potentially renascent fault line of its own
(continuing the dialect theme, central government attempts to sideline Cantonese
in favor of Mandarin in Guangdong province have aroused bitter opposition), but
that’s grist for a future crisis. And there's
the notorious Shanghai chauvinism. And the bloody devotion of Sichuanese to
their prerogatives.
All in all, the Chinese
ethnic monolith is a mirage—a fact of
life not only for the PRC in dealing with distinctive ethnic groups in the West
and South, but also within the Han polity inside China, in Hong Kong, and, for
places like Singapore and Taiwan, in the diaspora.
As that myth fades, new
prospects open: not only for the crumbling of PRC rule, but also for the ethnic
unity of the mainland and how powerful forces will seek to preserve or undermine
it. And for the political fortunes of Taiwan and its split between indigenes and
mainlanders, and for the nations of central Asia who divide the scattered Uyghur
population with Xinjiang, and a share in its problems.
The Occupy Hong Kong strategy
is based on a tickle-the-dragon's-tail program of carefully orchestrated
escalation. It's assumed that giving some rein to local particularism will
pressure the CCP in making some concessions on local democracy, not spark a
runaway independence movement or create an existential threat for the CCP that
provokes a military crackdown.
But now what once perhaps
seemed impossible seems, if not likely, well, possible.
Advocates of democracy—and
the PRC getting a well-deserved kick in the ass—unreservedly welcome the Hong
Kong Occupy movement. But many of those
who govern Chinese polities, I expect, note the presence of the doppelganger of
local chauvinism, and find their enthusiasm tempered by fears of what rancorous
identity politics, language rights, and communal division will do to their
visions of stability and prosperity.