Migration as the Foundation for Political Attitudes in Hong Kong

Much of the established literature on Hong Kong’s political culture is myopic in sociohistorical scope. Commonly-cited forces which inform the political attitudes of Hong Kongers, typically characterized as liberal and democratic, include exposure to Western liberal values via British colonial rule and Mainland China’s pervasive influence as a former neighbor and present sovereign. While these are still relevant factors to consider in any analysis of contemporary Hong Kong politics, to consider them as preeminent in the formation of Hong Kong’s political culture unfortunately overlooks finer details such as the social makeup and origin of Hong Kong’s population and the pluralism present among political attitudes. This paper thus presents a novel view of political socialization in Hong Kong. Underpinning the modern political culture of Hong Kong is the refugee and migrant origin found in the majority of the territory’s population. In Hong Kong, refugee status is often synonymous with political apathy, but in this paper that notion is qualified to a considerable degree. Combining qualitative historical-conceptual analysis and empirical survey data, this paper argues that migrant and refugee influx is what provided the foundation for a postmaterialist development of Hong Kong’s modern political culture and its preference for liberal democratic values.

Hello, my name is Gabriel Yu. I’m a Global Affairs major at George Mason University, and my URSP project tackles a question which I’ve been meaning to answer for quite some time. Hong Kong is well-known for its history of mass protest demonstrations. Hong Kongers also strongly support liberal democratic values, and many of their protests have revolved around such values. But how did Hong Kong society come to be like this? Was it the British, their former colonizers, who introduced these values? Has China, which regained sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997, played a role in fueling animosity among Hong Kongers? While I don’t discredit the impact Hong Kong’s colonial past has had on the city’s relationship with China, I think the origins of Hong Kong’s political attitudes actually lie in the very nature of its society’s formation and evolution. What makes Hong Kong quite unique, having few similar cases in this regard, is that its very essence is colonial. When the British gained Hong Kong in 1841, they were also creating Hong Kong. So over the course of its 180 years of history, Hong Kong’s population has grown from a measly few thousand to nearly seven and a half million people. These people had to come from somewhere, and the vast majority of them trace their origins to China. How strongly Hong Kongers feel connected to China is another matter to discuss, but what this means is that nearly all Hong Kongers today either have migrant or refugee origins or are themselves migrants or refugees. So how did Hong Kongers go from starving refugees and wealth-driven migrants to politically-engaged citizens? Through my analysis of the relevant literature, I have found that in leaving China to settle in Hong Kong, people were essentially seeking wealth and/or safety. For much of Hong Kong’s history, China was a very difficult place to live. It has had to deal with violent social uprisings, invasion, and civil war, among many other issues. In Hong Kong, people were largely kept safe from these issues. But while life in Hong Kong was certainly easier than life in China, there was still no democracy in the British colony, and colonial officials largely kept their focus on generating income, not attending to the needs of the population. It was only in the 1970s when the colonial government, under Governor Murray MacLehose, began to take proactive efforts to make Hong Kong a better place to live. Democracy was also slowly being introduced into Hong Kong during this time, and the idea of democracy was not falling on deaf ears in the case of Hong Kongers. By the 1980s and 90s, Hong Kongers were wealthier and more well-educated than they had ever been, notwithstanding persistent issues such as income inequality. The point is, in order to protect the way of life they’ve acquired in Hong Kong, one which was nearly impossible to get in China, the people of Hong Kong must have democracy so that they can rule themselves. As political scientist Ma Ngok says in his 2011 article Value Changes and Legitimacy Crisis in Post-industrial Hong Kong, “the democrats’ major argument for the necessity of democracy after 1997 was that it is the best system to guarantee autonomy, freedom, and rule of law. In other words, a popularly elected government was more likely to stave off intervention from Beijing and defend Hong Kong’s way of life.” But since true democracy has never been implemented in Hong Kong, its people have habitually turned to protest to express their desires. As Australian journalist Antony Dapiran wrote in his 2017 book “City of Protest”, “protests have always had at their core anxiety about Hong Kong’s identity.” Furthermore, survey data from 2018 by the World Value Survey indicates that for the most part, democratic rule is considered to be important by most Hong Kongers. To conclude, I want to point out that Hong Kong remains an unconventional case within democratization literature. Although it possesses the societal foundation for democratization, as I have uncovered, its colonial past left democratization incomplete, and Chinese rule today has been far from diligent in completing this task. The people of Hong Kong have never been in control of their own political fate, and it remains to be seen whether their wishes, whatever they encompass, will eventually be granted. Thank you for watching.