Beijing Demands Hong Kong Patriotism

Last year's protests resulted in this year's national security law

Beijing continues its crusade to win the hearts and minds of Hongkongers albeit in a more forceful way these days.

After last year's protests rocked the city for months, and included attacks on the liaison office, the Chinese authorities lost their patience and implemented the national security law June 30 in a bid to scare people into submission.

Chen says new law won't lead to more patriots

While the new law is meant to prevent people from committing national security crimes against Hong Kong and China, it will not make make them feel more Chinese or Hongkonger. In other words it will not make them feel more patriotic.

Albert Chen Hung-yee who is also a Basic Law Committee member said Saturday the question of collective identity -- whether society considers themselves Hongkongers or Chinese -- won't be easily resolved.

"It is difficult to see how this collective identity problem can be solved in the forseeable future," Chen said. "The National Security law can prohibit people from advocating secession, but it cannot prohibit people from thinking in certain directions."

Chen, who is a constitutional law expert at the University of Hong Kong, said the new law enacted by Beijing -- that bans acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security -- will not help resolve this issue.

Xi presses the button to vote on the new law

"It cannot change people's psychology or sense of collective identity as to who they are, whether they are Hongkongers and Chinese, and so on. So I don't think this problem can be resolved in the foreseeable future," he said in an online seminar on the SAR's governance after the implementation of the national security law.

He gave the example of the government introducing the national education scheme in 2012 that was meant to address identity, but was eventually shelved due to protests and backlash because it promoted the Communist Party of China.

The recent universal testing programme was meant to be another exercise in getting local residents to praise Beijing for helping expand mass coronavirus testing faster, the implementation of the scheme happened as the number of new cases dropped significantly, and it was a shock to find out afterwards that Hong Kong had to foot a HK$530 million bill for the two-week test that only found 42 positive cases out of 1.7 million people who participated; basically the entire exercise was a waste in public funds.

Mass protests against national education in 2012

So Beijing will have to think of other ways to win the hearts and minds of Hongkongers. But without understanding where they come from (families who fled the Communists), the Chinese will never be able to fully convert Hongkongers peacefully; tensions will remain for generations to come.