A City Apart: Hong Kong Marks 20 Years of Chinese Rule

15 minute read

If you take a train about 18 miles north of Hong Kong’s city center, and then pay the fare (a tick under a dollar) to board a creaky minibus, you will eventually find yourself on the outskirts of the village of Muk Wu, which is comfortably lost to time. Here, the dense, dated brutalist heights of Hong Kong’s apartment complexes give way to rolling hills and rice paddies. There is an old temple at the village center with incense burning inside, its outer walls swallowed by vines browned in the summer heat. Street dogs sleep at the foot of its alleys, too hot to bother growling at the occasional visitor. Because this is Hong Kong, one of the world’s most meticulously run towns, there is a public restroom along the main lane, and it is spotless.

The vision is that of Asian pastoral, but it is betrayed by the tall iron fence running along the town’s northern edge. This marks Hong Kong’s border with mainland China. On the other side is Shenzhen: a former fishing village of 30,000 that in four decades has become one of the fastest-growing and most vital cities in the world, with a population of 12 million and more skyscrapers constructed in 2016 — including the fourth-tallest building on the planet — than in all of the U.S. and Australia combined.

Not far from here, just before midnight on June 30, 1997, thousands of mainland Chinese troops rumbled across the border into Hong Kong. It was 156 years ago that the British wrested the territory from China amid the greed of the Opium Wars. In that time, the subtropical territory was transformed, most implausibly, and quite simply, into one of the world’s greatest metropolises. Now it was returning to Beijing’s rule under an agreement known as “one country, two systems”: Hong Kong would retain its own government and laws to bulwark its liberal capitalist ethos under the ultimate sovereignty of a communist power. Some Hong Kongers were so skeptical that they left Hong Kong for places like Canada and Australia in the years leading up to the “handover,” as it was called; others proudly waved the red Chinese flag as the troops rolled onto Hong Kong’s streets.

A general view of the handover ceremony
The handover ceremony July 1 showing the Chinese flag flying after the Union Jack was lowered.Kimimasa Mayama—AFP/Getty Images

Twenty years have passed. Such anniversaries are arbitrary markers, mostly, but they invite an opportunity for reflection — on where things are, on pledges kept or not, on what’s to come next — and never before in Hong Kong’s history has such reflection been timelier. The story of contemporary Hong Kong, many people here will tell you, is a story of broken promises: the story of a city constitutionally bequeathed with “a high degree of autonomy,” but which has seen its crusades for democracy repeatedly defeated and its liberal values inexorably eroded by its overlords in Beijing. This as the mainland itself has flourished — China is the world’s second-biggest economy after the U.S., and its middle class ranks among the most upwardly mobile anywhere — while Hong Kong suffers from unaffordable housing, limited professional opportunities and among the widest wealth gaps in the developed world. In 1997 Hong Kong constituted almost a fifth of China’s GDP; now it’s about 3%.

Today, Hong Kong is politically and economically an increasingly integrated part of China: successive local governments have hewed ever closer to Beijing’s line, and mainland companies are now beginning to dominate local commerce, particularly real estate, which has a ripple effect through almost all the city’s business sectors. And yet: Hong Kong is, mentally and emotionally, a city apart, more so than at any time since 1997. In a recent survey by the University of Hong Kong, nearly two-thirds of respondents identified themselves as Hong Kongers rather than Chinese. “Despite the fact that we’re all Chinese, we’ve been brought up in a different culture,” says Anson Chan, a former top Hong Kong official fighting for the city’s freedoms. “We might as well have come from a different part of the world.”

Read More: Hong Kong 20th Anniversary: Portraits from Settler Society

Says Grace Wong, an education administrator in her late 30s: “Since 1997, every Hong Kong person has been able to feel the atmosphere change. The DJs on the radio talk shows are choosing their words carefully to avoid upsetting the authorities. The Hong Kong people have always been able to speak out — now what are we doing? I do not know what is happening to this city. Is it just becoming China?”

This is not what the authorities want you to believe. In recent weeks a chorus of Hong Kong and mainland officials have loudly sung the same refrain: “one country, two systems” is working just fine; discontent is not widespread but emanates from a small group of troublemakers. The Hong Kong government has thrown itself into the preparations for an epic celebration of the handover anniversary, which will be attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping. On lampposts across the city, colorful banners carry the event’s awkwardly phrased slogan: TOGETHER, PROGRESS, OPPORTUNITY. The event planning board has hosted events around the city virtually every week this year — for example: a jewelry-designing contest for local students to “express their feelings through their design towards the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s reunification with the Motherland.” The firework display for the anniversary will feature simplified Chinese characters, which are used on the mainland, not the traditional script common in Hong Kong. The anniversary’s official theme song, called “Hong Kong Our Home,” extols a city that is “shining ever brighter.”

HONG KONG-CHINA-BRITAIN-POLITICS-HANDOVER-ANNIVERSARY
In this photo taken on April 27, 2017, commuters travel on a tram with a design commemorating the 20th anniversary since the city was handed back to China in Hong Kong.Anthony Wallace—AFP/Getty Images

“These lyrics are so flaccid,” one online commenter wrote when the song was released this spring. “Does this ‘home’ still look like a home?”

It could be argued that this malaise — the malaise that in recent years has fueled protests, prompted new emigration, and engendered a climate of bitter resignation — is nothing more than the logical conclusion of a century-and-a-half of powerlessness. “Hong Kong has always been a colony,” says 26-year-old activist Chan Ho-tin. It’s an overcast Thursday afternoon and we’re having dong nai cha — iced milk tea, a Hong Kong staple — at a fluorescent-lit diner just west of downtown. A double-decker streetcar, chartered by the government and adorned with the flags of Hong Kong and China, with a brass band playing chipper patriotic tunes on the upper deck, rumbles past on the century-old tracks outside. “We were a colony under the British,” says Chan, “and we’re a colony under the Chinese. We’ve never had a say in our future.”

It is not an unfair point. In the early 1980s, Margaret Thatcher’s government sat down with Deng Xiaoping’s to negotiate the political future of Hong Kong, the British lease on which was set to expire in 1997. It was a tricky matter. Under the Crown, Hong Kong had evolved from a collection of barren rocks into a glittering global finance and trade hub (“Colonization done well,” Prince Charles grumbled in his travel journal after the handover); China was still in its early days of industrialization, its political and economic future anxiously uncertain. The result of these talks, reached with hardly any popular input, was proportionately fraught: a complicated arrangement called “one country, two systems,” under which Hong Kong could “enjoy a high degree of autonomy,” its social systems and “life-style” unchanged, but “foreign and defense affairs” — a conveniently broad term — would be left to the Chinese government.

“What we were doing was putting in Hong Kong panes of glass, so that if the building was vandalized, the world outside would be able to see the shards of broken glass on the floor,” says Chris Patten, 73, the last British governor of Hong Kong. “That was true about the rule of law, it was true about the judiciary, it was true about human rights legislation. We put in place the sort of laws which guaranteed continuing freedom of association, freedom of worship, freedom of speech and so on.”

Read More: Hong Kong 20th Anniversary: Chris Patten, the Last Colonial Governor, Recalls the City’s Handover

“The thrust of ‘one country, two systems’ was Beijing exercising restraint,” says Emily Lau, a former pro-democracy lawmaker. “We’re just a small city — it was incumbent on Beijing to keep its promises.” Many panicked. By some estimates, as many as a million Hong Kongers scrambled to claim residency overseas in the years leading up to the handover, in particular to Canada. (Today, Vancouver is sometimes nicknamed Hongcouver.) Collectively, the city was ambivalent on the rainy night of June 30, 1997, when the Union Jack was lowered from the city’s flagpoles and the red-and-yellow Chinese flag took its place.

What assuaged people for the first decade and a half was the promise that Hong Kong would eventually be a democratic place. The territory’s legislature and district councils were already chosen in part by popular vote; eventually, Beijing pledged, Hong Kong’s top leader, the Chief Executive (CE), would be, too. (Since 1997, the office has been filled by a 1,200-member committee seen as a conduit for Beijing’s choice of CE.)

HONG KONG-CHINA-POLITICS-DEMOCRACY
Protestors hold up their cellphones in a display of solidarity during a protest outside the headquarters of Legislative Council in Hong Kong on Sept. 29, 2014.Xaume Olleros—AFP/Getty Images

Comforted by what would prove to a misconception, Hong Kong people happily fell into their role at the nexus of China and the world. Life was good. Unemployment barely topped 5%, even during the Great Recession. When Beijing hosted the Olympics in the summer of 2008, people here heckled the handful of protesters who came out to denounce China’s interference in Tibet. “What kind of Chinese are you?” one Hong Konger yelled at a demonstrator. Children crowded the sidewalks to wave little Chinese flags as torchbearers carried the Olympic flame through the streets.

And then the children grew up. Historians looking back on the second decade of the 21st century will likely trace its liberal political upheavals to disaffected, plugged-in youth: the Arab Spring, the Bersih protests in Malaysia, the grassroots movements of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn — and also Hong Kong, where a new, embattled generation born on the cusp of the handover was no longer swayed by the colorful optics that adorned an authoritarian state’s sovereignty over the world’s freest city. They wanted to think for themselves. They wanted to vote. “It was clear our autonomy was threatened,” says 20-year-old Joshua Wong. “‘One country, two systems’ had devolved to ‘one country, one-and-a-half systems.”

The bespectacled, angular Wong is familiar to anyone who has followed Hong Kong’s political drama in the last five years. In 2012, at the age of 15, he led a demonstration against a government campaign to create a local academic curriculum that would instill “national education” and a patriotic respect for mainland China. I first met him two summers after that, in a noodle shop tucked beneath the gritty neon lights of Wan Chai district.
Things were tense. The CE, an aloof businessman named Leung Chun-ying, was increasingly unpopular, spurring new calls for direct elections. Beijing did not seem to be listening. “To affect the world, you go to the streets,” Wong told me that night.

Read More: The Hong Kong Protests Have Given Rise to a New Political Generation

Two months later, he — and hundreds of thousands of others — did just that. After Beijing declared that the CE must be someone who “loves Hong Kong,” activists took to the streets of key commercial districts, where they remained for three months. It was a demand for suffrage, but more cosmically it was a repudiation of any illusion of sameness between Hong Kong and the mainland. It was known as the Umbrella Movement, because protesters used umbrellas to shield themselves from police tear gas; its unofficial anthem was a song by local musicians called “Raise the Umbrella.”

“Chinese nationalism went viral during the Olympics in 2008, but when I started to think about it, it was clear we were just two different cultures,” the activist Chan Ho-tin says over tea. “We speak different languages. We have different values. We value freedom. Fairness.”

Chan is the leader of the Hong Kong National Party, a political group that emerged about a year ago on the wave of an unprecedented movement: the call for Hong Kong’s outright independence from mainland China. Things had not improved in the wake of the Umbrella protests. In late 2015, five Hong Kong-based publishers who sold salacious books critical of mainland Chinese officials went missing and later turned up in the custody of
mainland police — a flagrant violation of the legal protections afforded to Hong Kong under “one country, two systems.” Last summer, one in six Hong Kongers said they supported the territory’s independence, according to a local university poll; in September, two proponents of it, Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching, were elected to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. Within 10 weeks, Beijing had interfered to decree they were not allowed to take office.

79 Days That Shook Hong Kong

Pro-democracy demonstrators are sprayed with pepper spray during clashes with police officers during a rally near the Hong Kong government headquarters on Sept. 28, 2014.
Pro-democracy demonstrators are sprayed with pepper spray during clashes with police officers during a rally near the Hong Kong government headquarters on Sept. 28, 2014. Xaume Olleros—AFP/Getty Images
A pro-democracy demonstrator gestures after police fired tear gas towards protesters near the Hong Kong government headquarters on Sept. 28, 2014.
A pro-democracy demonstrator gestures after police fired tear gas towards protesters near the Hong Kong government headquarters on Sept. 28, 2014. Xaume Olleros—AFP/Getty Images
Riot police use tear gas against protesters after thousands of people blocked a main road at the financial central district in Hong Kong, Sept. 28, 2014.
Riot police use tear gas against protesters after thousands of people blocked a main road at the financial central district in Hong Kong, Sept. 28, 2014. AP
Policemen rest following pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong on Sept. 29, 2014.
Policemen rest following pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong on Sept. 29, 2014. Xaume Olleros—AFP/Getty Images
A protester raises his arms as police officers try to disperse the crowd near the government headquarters in Hong Kong, Sept. 29, 2014.
A protester raises his arms as police officers try to disperse the crowd near the government headquarters in Hong Kong, Sept. 29, 2014. Carlos Barria—Reuters
Protesters gather in the streets outside the Hong Kong Government Complex on Sept. 29, 2014 in Hong Kong.
Protesters gather in the streets outside the Hong Kong Government Complex on Sept. 29, 2014 in Hong Kong.Chris McGrath—Getty Images
Pro-democracy demonstrators hold up their mobile phones during a protest near the Hong Kong government headquarters on Sept. 29, 2014.
Pro-democracy demonstrators hold up their mobile phones during a protest near the Hong Kong government headquarters on Sept. 29, 2014. Dale de la Rey—AFP/Getty Images
A protester sleeps on the streets outside the Hong Kong Government Complex at sunrise on Sept. 30, 2014 in Hong Kong.
A protester sleeps on the streets outside the Hong Kong Government Complex at sunrise on Sept. 30, 2014 in Hong Kong.Paula Bronstein—Getty Images
Protesters take part in a rally on a street outside of Hong Kong Government Complex on Sept. 30, 2014 in Hong Kong.
Protesters take part in a rally on a street outside of Hong Kong Government Complex on Sept. 30, 2014 in Hong Kong. Anthony Kwan—Getty Images
Joshua Wong, leader of the student movement, delivers a speech as protesters block the main street to the financial Central district, outside the government headquarters building in Hong Kong Oct.1, 2014.
Joshua Wong, leader of the student movement, delivers a speech as protesters block the main street to the financial Central district, outside the government headquarters building in Hong Kong Oct. 1, 2014. Carlos Barria—Reuters
Protesters react as Joshua Wong (not pictured), leader of the student movement, speaks to the crowd outside the government headquarters building in Hong Kong, Oct.1, 2014.
Protesters react as Joshua Wong (not pictured), leader of the student movement, speaks to the crowd outside the government headquarters building in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2014. Carlos Barria—Reuters
A protester holding an umbrella stands on the street close to the Hong Kong Government Complex on Oct.1, 2014 in Hong Kong.
A protester holding an umbrella stands on the street close to the Hong Kong Government Complex on Oct. 1, 2014 in Hong Kong. Chris McGrath—Getty Images
A local resident breaks through police lines and attempts to reach the pro-democracy tent on Oct. 3, 2014 in Mong Kok, Hong Kong.
A local resident breaks through police lines and attempts to reach the pro-democracy tent on Oct. 3, 2014 in Mong Kok, Hong Kong.Chris McGrath—Getty Images
Policemen try to get a man to let go of a fence guarded by pro-democracy demonstrators in an occupied area of Hong Kong on Oct. 3, 2014.
Policemen try to get a man to let go of a fence guarded by pro-democracy demonstrators in an occupied area of Hong Kong on Oct. 3, 2014. Philippe Lopez—AFP/Getty Images
A pro-democracy protester sleeps on a concrete road divider on a street outside the Hong Kong Government Complex on Oct. 5, 2014 in Hong Kong.
A pro-democracy protester sleeps on a concrete road divider on a street outside the Hong Kong Government Complex on Oct. 5, 2014 in Hong Kong.Chris McGrath—Getty Images
The statue "Umbrella Man" by the Hong Kong artist known as Milk, is set up at a pro-democracy protest site next to the central government offices in Hong Kong on Oct. 5, 2014.
The statue "Umbrella Man" by the Hong Kong artist known as Milk, is set up at a pro-democracy protest site next to the central government offices in Hong Kong on Oct. 5, 2014. Alex Ogle—AFP/Getty Images
A pro-democracy protester uses bamboo to strengthen a barricade blocking a major road in Hong Kong on Oct. 13, 2014.
A pro-democracy protester uses bamboo to strengthen a barricade blocking a major road in Hong Kong on Oct. 13, 2014. Alex Ogle—AFP/Getty Images
Demonstrators walk past notes hanging on a wall outside the Central Government Offices in the Admiralty business district in Hong Kong on Oct. 17, 2014.
Demonstrators walk past notes hanging on a wall outside the Central Government Offices in the Admiralty business district in Hong Kong on Oct. 17, 2014. Brent Lewin—Bloomberg/Getty Images
Tents set up by pro-democracy protesters are seen in an occupied area outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong's Admiralty district, Nov. 12, 2014.
Tents set up by pro-democracy protesters are seen in an occupied area outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong's Admiralty district, Nov. 12, 2014.Vincent Yu—AP
A young Hong Kong couple who did not give their names wear gas masks as they pose for a wedding photographer prior to their marriage next to the tents used by pro-deocracy demonstrators at the Admiralty protest site on Nov. 14, 2014 in Hong Kong.
A young Hong Kong couple who did not give their names wear gas masks as they pose for a wedding photographer prior to their marriage next to the tents used by pro-deocracy demonstrators at the Admiralty protest site on Nov. 14, 2014 in Hong Kong.Kevin Frayer—Getty Images
Police face pro-democracy protesters on Nov. 19, 2014 outside the central government offices in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong.
Police face pro-democracy protesters on Nov. 19, 2014 outside the central government offices in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong. Alex Ogle—AFP/Getty Images
Pro-democracy activists join arms as they face off with police outside the Legislative Council building on Nov. 19, 2014 in Hong Kong.
Pro-democracy activists join arms as they face off with police outside the Legislative Council building on Nov. 19, 2014 in Hong Kong. Chris McGrath—Getty Images
Police officers disperse pro-democracy protesters outside the Legislative Council building after clashes with pro-democracy activists on Nov. 19, 2014 in Hong Kong.
Police officers disperse pro-democracy protesters outside the Legislative Council building after clashes with pro-democracy activists on Nov. 19, 2014 in Hong Kong. Lam Yik Fei—Getty Images
Pro-democracy protesters climb up a wall as police officers disperse them outside the Legislative Council building after clashes with pro-democracy activists on Nov. 19, 2014 in Hong Kong.
Pro-democracy protesters climb up a wall as police officers disperse them outside the Legislative Council building after clashes with pro-democracy activists on Nov. 19, 2014 in Hong Kong. Lam Yik Fei—Getty Images
Pro-democracy activists sleep outside the Legislative Council building after protesters clashed with police on Nov. 19, 2014 in Hong Kong.
Pro-democracy activists sleep outside the Legislative Council building after protesters clashed with police on Nov. 19, 2014 in Hong Kong. Chris McGrath—Getty Images
Police arrest a pro-democracy protester on Lung Wo Road outside Hong Kong's Government complex on Nov. 30, 2014 in Hong Kong.
Police arrest a pro-democracy protester on Lung Wo Road outside Hong Kong's Government complex on Nov. 30, 2014 in Hong Kong. Anthony Kwan—Getty Images
A young student studies in a makeshift classroom set up on a main road at a major pro-democracy protest site in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong on Dec. 1, 2014.
A young student studies in a makeshift classroom set up on a main road at a major pro-democracy protest site in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong on Dec. 1, 2014. Anthony Wallace—AFP/Getty Images
A demonstrator is taken away by policemen, at an area previously blocked by pro-democracy supporters, outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong, Dec. 11, 2014.
A demonstrator is taken away by policemen, at an area previously blocked by pro-democracy supporters, outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong, Dec. 11, 2014. Athit Perawongmetha—Reuters
Pro-democracy protesters remove signs placed up during the past two months of protests from the area around the protest camp but leave intact the notice "We are dreamers" in the Admiralty in Hong Kong on Dec. 11, 2014.
Pro-democracy protesters remove signs placed up during the past two months of protests from the area around the protest camp but leave intact the notice "We are dreamers" in the Admiralty in Hong Kong on Dec. 11, 2014.Pedro Ugarte—AFP/Getty Images
Hong Kong police dismantle the remains of the pro-democracy protest camp in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong on Dec. 11, 2014.
Hong Kong police dismantle the remains of the pro-democracy protest camp in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong on Dec. 11, 2014. Pedro Ugarte—AFP/Getty Images

“It was a wakeup call for China — it wasn’t just a few idealists advocating something unserious,” says Michael Tien, a tycoon and pro-Beijing legislator. “And it had to do with various departments in China not treating us sensitively — not respecting our concept of freedom of speech, our passionate dedication to the law. It gave the activists ammunition.”

Even its defenders admit that independence is impractical. (“Not in this generation, at least,” says Chan Ho-tin.) For all of Hong Kong’s disdain for the mainland — go to YouTube and search “Hong Konger yells at rude mainlander for eating on subway” — the cruel irony is that Hong Kong needs mainland China more than mainland China needs Hong Kong: for electricity and water, for food imports, and most critically for the economic capital that has sustained Hong Kong’s financial institutions and tourist industry as the mainland’s economy has boomed. Once hailed as Asia’s “World City,” Hong Kong’s GDP now lags behind that of Shanghai and Beijing; recently it was reported that Hong Kong will be overtaken by the southern China city of Guangzhou as the dominant regional air travel hub within a couple of years. The mainland is on the cutting edge of smartphone app development and boasts a film industry set to surpass Hollywood. Hong Kong has exactly zero art museums of global renown and a failed government-developed tech campus called Cyberport, whose most exciting tenants after 11 years are the Hong Kong Free Press, an online news site launched in 2015 in response to the perceived crackdown on local media, and a movie theater.

Read More: 8 Questions for Hong Kong Democracy Activist Joshua Wong

Politically conscious young people are well aware of these issues, and blame them on a local government that they say has prioritized pleasing Beijing over fixing the city. They are unlikely to change their minds about this. In March, the committee to choose the next CE picked Carrie Lam, a 60-year-old career bureaucrat who has increasingly expressed pro-Beijing sentiments. During a recent interview with CNN, Lam said about the kidnappings of Hong Kong residents: “It would not be appropriate for us to challenge what happens on the mainland.”

Angered by continual anti-Beijing protests in Hong Kong, and by the emergence of an independence movement, however nominal, China’s leaders are reading the city the riot act. “The relationship between the central government and Hong Kong is that of delegation of power, not power-sharing.” Zhang Dejiang, chairman of China’s National People’s Congress, said recently. While Lam says she and her team will focus on livelihood issues, it’s likely Beijing will pressure her to introduce national education as well as national security laws similar to those on the mainland.

Is Hong Kong as it was, and still is, doomed? Over the decades, the city has always been able to bounce back from adversity. Chris Patten believes Hong Kong will survive its latest challenges too. “It’s wonderful that young and old people in Hong Kong have such a strong sense of what it means to be a citizen in a plural society,” says Patten. “It remains a terrific city, one of the freest cities in Asia. That is not because of Beijing; it’s not because of Britain. It’s because of the people of Hong Kong.”

— With reporting by Kevin Lui / Hong Kong

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