Chinese Nationalism Contested: The Rise of Hong Kong Identity

Abstract

The mass pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong for the first time raised doubts about the ”one country, two systems” model that was adopted by Deng Xiaoping to unite Hong Kong with mainland China in 1997. This has considerably alarmed the People`s Republic of China (PRC) whose nationalist ideology is underpinned by its policy of successful reunification not only with Hong Kong but, in the future, with Taiwan. In fact, the rise of a distinct Hong Kong identity contests the ”one China” principle. This exposes the weakness of the notion of Chinese nationalism which defines the current ideology of the PRC and gives the Chinese party-state its legitimacy and enables it to survive. This study looks into how a Hong Kong identity has emerged and contests the notion of Chinese nationalism today. It also examines how China attempts to impose its notions of nationalism on the Hong Kong identity. The present crisis in Hong Kong thus represents a clash between Chinese nationalism and the Hong Kong identity. In essence, what China needs is a new definition of nationalism which, instead of submerging the ”other,” can try to build a plural identity in which competing identities coexist and do not clash.