Hong Kong’s Education Bureau tries to explain why they want school kids to learn that the city was never a British colony. This follows controversy and mockery that moved one normally-dull legislator to something approaching wit…
Lawmaker Priscilla Leung said during a Legislative Council meeting in early July that saying “Hong Kong was never a colony” was nothing new. “But many people reacted as if a new continent had been discovered…”
Despite how it sounds, the point of the ‘not a colony’ stance is not to claim that the British never governed Hong Kong (the word ‘British’ is redundant here). The intention is to underline China’s long-standing principle that the territory was all along legitimately part of China and never entitled to self-rule (ie independence). Hence the removal back in the 1970s of Hong Kong and Macau from the United Nations’ list of territories slated for ‘decolonization’.
The problem is that the authorities assume everyone defines the word ‘colony’ as ‘a place that deserves to be independent’, when most people simply use it to describe the pre-1997 order. Rectification of Names officials further imagine that this supposed misunderstanding encourages thoughts of Hong Kong independence, when in reality such sentiment arises from distrust or hostility towards the CCP’s party-state. Pushing a dumb phrase like ‘Hong Kong was never a British colony’ doesn’t help.
More on phrases… Human Rights Watch notes how years of excessive rhetoric on Taiwan has produced ultra-nationalist – even anti-government – attitudes in China…
Chinese social media is awash with … videos and posts calling for violence against Taiwan … This reflects in part incessant state propaganda and censorship over territorial, ethnic, and human rights issues.
…Discussions challenging these Chinese Communist Party platitudes are strictly prohibited and could send one to prison … Much of what remains online is a cacophony of rage and hate.
…Some netizens are calling on the Chinese government to dissolve the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, the government body dealing with Taiwan, arguing that these officials are “traitors” in need of “punishment.”
Maybe some Taiwanese would support this idea.
“Chinese social media is awash with … videos and posts calling for violence against Taiwan … This reflects in part incessant state propaganda and censorship over territorial, ethnic, and human rights issues.”
I’d love to see the CCP implement a draft just to see how many of the overfed, myopic and “Incel” McD’s and KFC generation would actually show up to report for duty to “fight for the motherland and make the renegade brethren in that misbehaving province see the light”??
How about “I Can’t Believe It’s Not A Colony!®”?
It’s wonderfully cheeky of the Hong Kong Government to spend so much energy trying to make out that Hong Kong was never a colony whilst at the same time saying that the USP of ever-so-colonial rule of law is still working fine and using old colonial laws that explicitly mention “offences against the crown” and “assaults on the queen”, “the person of Her Majesty, or Her Heirs or Successors”, “the government of any other part of Her Majesty’s dominions” and “Her Majesty’s subjects” to silence their opposition (who want freedom from both colonial administrations).
One might argue that if you hold the stance that Hong Kong was never really a colony, then it would follow that the sedition law was never really valid or applicable… but, to paraphrase Forrest Gump, hypocrisy is as hypocrisy doesn’t.
You forgot to mention that China combines denying that Hong Kong was a colony with telling its people to free themselves of colonial thinking – which they presumably picked up when living in a (non-)colony. Curious indeed.
An army of “Little Emperor” soldiers, led by a corrupt officers corps and directed by an even more corrupt Government: what could possibly go wrong?
Hong Kong IS a colony now and has been since 1842. If it were part of the PRC we would be driving on the RHS of the road and transacting in RMB (which obviously the CCP leadership will not wish to rectify for their own personal money laundering reasons).
Totally agree with the well made points above by @Colony Mustard @Low Profile
I have a book in my bookshelf titled The Colony That Never Was published about 30 years ago by Chine Guides. The administration must have been trolling through the 2nd hand bookstores for ideas.
“An army of “Little Emperor” soldiers, led by a corrupt officers corps and directed by an even more corrupt Government: what could possibly go wrong?”
If only there was an actual live situation going on now that would allow us to see how that scenario plays out?
The Raven Flies By
And so before her journey’s ending, Nancy showed herself befriending
Taiwan, which can freely vote now, though it was not so before.
The Generalissimo was static, anti-change and autocratic;
But his son was democratic, so the structure down he tore,
All the geriatric structure boldly battered down and tore.
Old time gone for evermore.
China angry now and fuming, people are afraid, assuming
China seeks a provocation for a cold – or hot – new war.
See her planes and ships arising, on the high seas exercising,
Caution and finesse despising, as so many times before.
Threaten, missile firing, threaten, as they’ve often done before.
Taiwan lasts for evermore.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Those the verses that I wrote on Friday. Then I put my coat on.
Out. Into the seeping drizzle, though it didn’t really pour.
Home again, I put the news on, heard that China put the screws on
USA, and won’t share views on many things they did before,
Many quite important things. It sounds more serious than before.
No smiling matter any more.
[ with acknowledgement to ‘The Raven’ by Edgar Allan Poe ]
High time someone [incitement to something deleted] to remind the emperor of his place. Though it would be tremendously amusing to see the PLA founder on the rocks of Taiwan, quite apart from shutting up the tedious CCP bootlickers and defence “analists”.
@Knownot
Bravo.