Schedium

" How has Hong Kong changed after 1997 ?" - this is a question that many foreigners who come to Hong Kong ask local people. The transition from British colony to Chinese Special Administrative Region (SAR) was one of the most symbolic events of the last century and a major historical change witnessed by millions of people all around the world through the media. Until 1997, Hong Kong's history was deeply entangled with the history of the British Empire. One may say that without the British Empire, Hong Kong as we know it might never have existed. Hong Kong has been one of the most astonishing and successful colonial experiments, and one of the most amazing blends of different traditions and cultures the world has ever seen. I shall argue that 1997 did not simply mark the end of British colonial rule. It rather signified the shift of Hong Kong from a unique place that had been built upon the mix of different elements and outside of nationalist, economic or politica

The political and moral collapse of Communist regimes throughout the world in 1989 marked the beginning of a new era in global geopolitics. At that time, it seemed as if the capitalist-democratic Western system had triumphed and all countries in the world were destined sooner or later to accept the allegedly irrefutable verdict of history. Very few people would have bet on the survival of the CCP in China, or on the success of Deng Xiaoping's reform programme. The PRC appeared like a dying relic of a past age. The true meaning of the year 1989 remained inscrutable to those who didn't want to see. Western bias was too strong. In 1989 a new China was born; a China that combined East Asian-style developmentalist economic policies, autocratic statehood, and nationalist ideology.  The CCP regime survived the collapse of the Soviet bloc because the path it chose was different from that of its Communist 'brothers'. The PRC had already in the late 1970s embarked on a p

Time and again I stumble upon pro- or anti-Chinese articles that try to prove or disprove that Taiwan is a part of China. And I always wonder why - in the year 2014 - we are still discussing such issues as if the past had taught us nothing. Recently I read another one of those posts in which the author tried to show that Taiwan 'never belonged to China'. This question is as irrelevant to Taiwan's future as the question whether Alaska ever belonged to Russia is for the United States. There is a clear distinction between politics and history, and this distinction should be maintained and explained, so that people do not confuse the two categories. Chinese Nationalism and the New State Theory First of all, we must understand why the People's Republic of China (PRC) claims that Taiwan is part of its territory. Simply put, when the Qing Empire was defeated, humiliated and colonised by Western powers, Chinese intellectuals began to absorb Western ideas, among t

The recent student protests in Taiwan have become a highly debated topic on the island's as well as international media. The movement, which calls itself 'Sunflower Movement', was formed on March 19, when students occupied Taiwan's Legislative Yuan. The reason for this act of protest was a trade agreement with China which the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was pushing through parliament in a way that the opposition party DPP and a part of the population regarded as non-democratic ( note 1 , note 2 ). While Taiwan's press was divided on whether the movement was legitimate or not, with the pro-KMT and the anti-KMT camps offering their own respective interpretation, Western media have universally celebrated the movement as a proof of Taiwan's democratic maturity. As I have explained in my previous post, I am quite sceptical about the Sunflower Movement, mainly for three reasons: 1) the protesters are trying to delegitimise an elected - though unpopula

As the Umbrella Revolution unfolded and thousands of Hong Kong students and activists occupied various streets of the city demanding genuine universal suffrage , the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing and their allies in Hong Kong looked in dismay and astonishment, unable to understand what was happening. They condemned the democracy movement, which they considered an illegal act of subversion aided by foreign forces . Yet they didn't seem to take the true motives behind this popular protest seriously. If they had analysed these motives, they would have soon discovered that there are plenty of reasons why the people of Hong Kong might be dissatisfied with the status quo created by the ' one country, two systems ' model. One of them and, in my opinion, the most important one, lies in the ideologisation of society which the Communist state considers an integral part of its 'socialist' system, and which it is trying to extend to Hong Kong in

The youth of Hong Kong lack national identity and should be taught to feel Chinese, declared Chen Zuo'er, former deputy director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office and current president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies. "Hong Kong’s young students are intelligent and hard working. However, they lack a sense of national identity and of Chinese history," said Chen at a seminar held in Beijing on January 6. He argued that the participation of thousands of young students of Hong Kong in the recent Umbrella Revolution was a result of their lack of "national democratic [sic!] and civic awareness, life goals, and knowledge in geography, history and culture". He pointed out that Hong Kong's secretary for education is “under the supervision of the central government and Hong Kong society at all times”, according to articles 48 and 104 of the Basic Law . He urged Hong Kong's educators to take into

'Westernisation' is a commonplace, but a dreaded and hatred one. In recent decades most people have come to accept this notion as something natural, obvious, and somewhat inevitable. At the same time, however, Western influence has been often deemed dangerous, humiliating, and polluting. Asian societies have shown both a desire to 'learn from the West', and a great degree of mistrust towards Westernisation. For example, in 1994 former Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong warned his fellow countrymen not to imitate too much the West. In order to make his warning effective, he cited some of the issues that according to him plague Western societies: " broken families, teenage mothers, illegitimate children, juvenile delinquency, vandalism and violent crime " ( Asian Values, Western Dreams: Understanding the New Asia. Sheridan 1999 , p. 72). This vision of a chaotic, unstable, individualistic West is often referred to by advocates of East Asian values. 

Every now and then I receive messages from people who accuse me of being pro-KMT, pro-China, anti-Taiwan etc. etc. Well, I admit that I'm not a China-hater or KMT-hater, and that repeating over and over again that China and everything related to it is bad is not the purpose of my blog, and I wish - as a reader of blogs and newspapers myself - that the attitude of demonising others were less widespread.  I have explained in another post that I think the media coverage of China is often extremely biased ; it is either ideologically pro-China or ideologically anti-China. During my academic career I have learnt one important thing: when you write about something, distance yourself and try to be balanced. Being balanced doesn't mean you can't interpret things from your own perspective, but you must try to take into account all possible perspectives.  I therefore made clear that I think both pan-Chinese nationalism and Taiwanese nationalism are as legitimate as

In 2007, former President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) Lee Teng-hui (simplified Chinese 李登辉, t raditional Chinese 李登輝, pinyin:  Li Dēnghuī ) astonished the Taiwanese public when he declared to Next Magazine that he did not support Taiwan's independence [1].  For many years, Lee had been considered one of the most influential supporters of Taiwan's independence. In the 1990s, he had repeatedly angered the People's Republic of China and was denounced by Beijing as a 'separatist' who was pushing for an independent Taiwan. His political stance made him enemies on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. In fact, both the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang) support eventual reunification and adhere to the "one China" principle. In 2001, Lee was even expelled from the Guomindang, the party that he had led for 12 years. Although he had retired from active political life in 2000, during the election campaign he became th

Recently I have been criticised by some people because I used the term "Taiwanese nationalism", which to some apparently sounds too negative.  In this post, I will briefly explain what I mean by nationalism and why I am in principle sceptical about it. I am not arguing that nationalism is not a legitimate ideal. But I view nationalism as very problematic; first, because it presupposes a collective identity and the subordination of the individual to the community; second, because the "nation" itself can hardly be defined rationally and objectively. I won't be using any academic material as reference this time; since I want to respond to recent critical comments, I didn't have time to write down any quotations. This post will just be a blueprint, perhaps to use in the future for a more detailed analysis.  The Problem of the Nation On April 2, 2014, the Italian police arrested a group of Venetian separatists who allegedly were plotting to commi