"Patriotism" and "Education" in the context of "1c2s" for HK
wchao37  Updated: 2004-03-17 09:20

Was Beijing's education on the meaning of patriot a not-so-veiled threat to the Hongkong population?

Hongkongers are Chinese subjects after July1, 1997 and no responsible Chinese government would be implying threats against her own people when they talk about educating them, just as your biological parents could not possibly be threatening you when they reprimanded you for trying to touch a stoking fire.

The relationship of kinship between you and your parents determines that you are not threatened by their wanting to educate you.

Similarly, the Beijing government has stood on its head to give the Hongkong people a good deal since the retrocession ceremonies and the kinship relationship determines that Hongkongers are not threatened by Beijingers in the central government - those who simply want to educate them in the fundamentals of the 1c2s precept..

I am a Hongkonger. I know how a Hongkonger who has never been to the Mainland in the past two decades feels and thinks. I'll describe the attitude of such an ignorant person as "jian" or "cheap."

During the Brits' iron rule by decree from London before 1992, the Hongkongers enjoyed no political freedoms at all. In fact, before Chris Patten came to Hongkong in 1992, if you demonstrate on the streets without permission you'll be arrested and incarcerated in Stanley Prison on Hongkong Island.

It was only in Chris Patten's last watch as a colonial governor that they started talking about 'democracy' and 'direct elections. They were using these as fig leaves for their hitherto colonial rule as well as Trojan horses waiting for the 1997 retrocession to fail.

Simply put, the purpose of Patten's restive policies was simply to disrupt and use Hongkong as a base for the future subversion of the entirety of China.

He had advocated 'democracy and 'direct election' not because of contrition or repentance on the part of the British government that he represented, or any newly found romance between the governor and his Hongkong subjects.

After 156 years of colonial rule, the Hongkongers had been purposely led astray in their national identity (there was none) and actually molded or conditioned to high-pressure rule by foreigners.

There is a saying: "After a prolonged stay in the toilet you won't feel the stink and will in fact abhor true flagrances." They have by and large taken the central government's largesse in the economic policies as weakness or at least a lack of toughness to which they had grown acclimatized under the Brits.

That's why the likes of Martin Lee would go so far as to invite foreign interference by going to the dark, semen-drenched chambers of frolicking U.S. Congressmen, or that Legislator Emily Lau would go to Taipei to discuss Taiwan independence with the Taidos.

A great man once said, "Without a People's Army, the people have nothing." I grew up in Hongkong knowing how these people think. Basically it's a lack of self-education by not studying outside the prescribed school curriculum or visiting places to see the truth for themselves, or that they have not placed their priorities in the right order. They don't understand that without the support and protection of the central government in Beijing, the Hongkong people will have nothing.

What is a patriot? Is love for one's country the same as love for one's government?

The basic danger we are facing in Hongkong is that it should not be used as a base for subversion against the central government.

What the detractors in Hongkong billing themselves as 'democrats' are advocating is a 'one-man one-vote' voting protocol which they have advertised as the ONLY true manifestation of democracy in the former colony.

If that were the universal truth in representative governments then Al Gore should be the one sitting in that Oval Office right now and not Bush. During the last election he won half a million more popular votes than George Bush.

If the American backers of Martin Lee cannot or would not allow direct elections by popular vote to be available in their own country, why are they advocating this in Hongkong -- which is not within their jurisdiction in the first place?

So it is obvious that they have ulterior motives in backing people such as Martin Lee.

These folks are then clearly non-patriots of the Chinese nation.

Chinese patriots are those who respect their own Chinese nationality, sincerely support "One Country, Two Systems" and do not do any harm to the country or Hong Kong.

Let's examine this definition in three parts:

Firstly, If they don't respect their own Chinese nationality, how can they be patriots?

Due to our nation's tumultuous modern history, the people in the Chinese Diaspora have ended up carrying as many different kinds of passports as there are nations. Just like there were Polish Jews and Ethiopian Jews reading the same Torah or Pentateuch, there are Chinese all over the world in all continents reading "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and worshipping "Guan Gong," and this bonding is the evidence of their prideful feeling to be culturally a Chinese.

That's to say, no matter what passports they carry, if they do not take pride in being a Chinese and respect the meaning of being a Chinese national, they are not patriots.

Secondly, If they do not sincerely support the 1c2s precept, how do you expect the "two systems" policy to be implemented in practice in Hongkong?

It is empty talk to have two systems when even the "one country" precondition is not met. It will then be "two countries, two systems" with China losing her de facto sovereignty over Hongkong or "one country one system" with the Mainland's political system merging too fast with that of Hongkong, thereby unnecessarily scaring foreign investment away from the SAR.

Absorption of Hongkong into the body of Mainland China is not the same as the absorption of East Germany into West Germany.

This is because Hongkong is an international financial hub fully integrated into Western capital markets and its continued prosperity is very sensitive to political turmoil, while East Germany hardly made a ripple in the West when it was integrated into the Vaterland of Deutschland. This political and financial reality made the Chinese government tread very carefully when dealing with the issue of Hongkong.

However, just because Beijing is careful does not mean it cannot draw a line in the sand to exercise political control over Hongkong. One of the pre-conditions has got to be that the person eligible to run for the top office in Hongkong has to be a patriot.

A non-supporter of such a precept obviously aims to take the skin away from the hair so that the hairs have no place to go.

In such an eventuality Hongkong will be in turmoil because the transition from 2s to 1s will be too fast after 156 years of colonial rule in Hongkong.

We need a smooth transition over fifty years as embodied in the Basic Law of HKSAR. The entire purpose of the Basic Law is the manifest promulgation of the sovereignty of China over Hongkong.

Thirdly, if you cannot even uphold the principle of "not doing harm to the country or Hongkong" and instead go about objecting to Hongkong's smooth transition back to Chinese rule and wish for turmoil through incessant demonstrations for direct rule (which is not even practiced by the Americans themselves as delineated above), how can you call yourself a patriot?

Martin Lee and the diehard elements of the Catholic establishment in Hongkong swearing allegiance to the Vatican Pope want to mislead the Hongkong people and their Anglo backers have poured in huge amounts of money to support them.

Half a million people organized into holding demonstrations last July means there was an International Black Hand with ulterior motives financing the organizers, and no one has even made an investigation into their finances or frozen their accounts like the Americans did to suspected terrorists back home.

If the Chinese government cannot even ensure that a patriot is here to lead HKSAR towards eventual political integration with the Mainland - a place that is becoming increasingly progressive in its policies as reflected by the amendments to the nation's Constitutional Laws -- such a government would have lost the Mandate of the People and I definitely would not support such a government.

So in that scenario loving China would not be the same as loving the government, just like if Jesus had not been crucified on that cross bearing the burden of sin of all Mankind (according to Christian dogma) there would have been no implied equivalence possible between the crucifix and the 'Messiah.' Simply put, the crucifix has de facto symbolic significance here...

That's not what's happening here. The Chinese government has fulfilled its promise to uphold the sovereignty of the nation over Hongkong. So in this case the government has manifested the will of the nation and the people have no reason not to equate such a government with the nation. The crucifix is the 'Messiah.'

The above content represents the view of the author only.

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