Get ready for the approaching tsunami. The first wave has already struck. It swept over Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in Beijing last week when he met bossman Xi Jinping (習近平). Leung was made to sit at the side of a conference table with other officials while Xi sat alone at the head of the table.
No need to second-guess the motive for the sudden downgrading of the chief executive’s status. The new seating arrangement was an in-your-face message to Hong Kong from Xi that he’s the boss. Previously, the chief executive and the president sat next to each other in armchairs at the top of a conference room while other officials sat further down.
Once an indispensable engine that helped propel China’s economic rise, mainland leaders now see Hong Kong as an arrogant brat that needs to be told its proper place. That’s why Beijing issued its White Paper on Hong Kong last year making bluntly clear how it interprets “one country, two systems”.
Many Hongkongers fear Beijing is redefining “one country, two systems” to give it more flexibility to meddle in our affairs. We won’t laugh off those fears. Instead, we’ll ask why Beijing has switched from treating us as a favourite child to applying a heavy hand. If you really want to be honest, you’ll have to admit we brought it on ourselves.
Mainland leaders left us alone after the handover, even to the point that jittery Hongkongers who emigrated ahead of reunification returned. But in the past few years we repaid this hands-off approach with Beijing-bashing, localism and a 79-day uprising to demand so-called genuine democracy.
Hate the communist regime all you want but giving it the finger will bring even harsher heavy-handedness.
To be or not to be a localist? Yes, says Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah, who sees Hong Kong localism as a force that spurs unity and a sense of belonging. No, says Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, who sees our localists as a bunch of young thugs who harass mainlanders and promote Hong Kong independence.
Forget about who’s right. The question is why Tsang chose to trigger a public debate on localism by embracing it in his blog. Was it intended as a poke in the eye of his boss Leung?
The localists, who Leung hates, now love Tsang. He equated localism with the alumni’s sense of belonging at his secondary school, La Salle College. Public Eye can’t help but feel it’s naive in the Hong Kong context to equate the two. New Yorkers may feel a sense of belonging to New York but they don’t reject being called Americans.
Hong Kong’s localists call themselves Hongkongers and reject being called Chinese. Our localism is driven not by a desire to instil a societal sense of belonging but by a rejection of mainlanders and the communist regime. Is Tsang trying to write himself off as our next leader?
