Has Hong Kong Returned? (Lee Yee)
Last week I mentioned a visit by a wise young man, who posed several questions surrounding the time since the anti-ELAB movement. I answered one question in “The Silent Revolution”, now let me get to the rest.
Question: Would you use the word “Return” to describe the 1997 transfer of sovereignty?
In my articles, I usually refer to that as “transfer of sovereignty” and not “return” for the change in Hong Kong in 1997.
A country has three essential components: land, people, and sovereignty. Before 1997, Hong Kong was not a country, it was a British colony; land and sovereignty belonged to Britain, but the people could neither settle nor work in Britain. They did not have the same rights as British citizens. If Hong Kong was holistically “returned” to China in 1997, then land, people, and sovereignty should have all been returned; but the Basic Law stipulated that land is owned by the country only in the name, and the actual management, use, lease, and grant of land are all managed by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, whose government takes income generated by the land, and therefore essentially owns the land. Moreover, the border delineating the lands of Hong Kong and China continues to exist after 1997, and entering and exiting form people on both sides would require identification. All this shows that the land has not been returned. As for the people, in these 23 years, China has always said that in Hong Kong, “people’s hearts have not returned”. The meaning of “people’s hearts have not returned” is that Hongkongers are still not accepting the fact that sovereignty is now controlled by China. China, on the other hand, also did not give Hongkongers any status as Chinese citizens including rights and duties. Therefore, while Hongkongers’ hearts have not returned, China has also not treated Hongkongers as Chinese people. The fact that the people have not returned is mutual.
Say, if two of the three elements of land, people, and sovereignty possessed by a political entity have not returned, then Hong Kong cannot be said to have returned. We can only call it “transfer of sovereignty”.
Western democracies believe in the notion that a country’s sovereignty rests with the people. In ancient China, the notion that “people are the foundation of the country, when the foundation is solid, the country is peaceful” and “the people at of the utmost importance, the state is secondary, and least is the ruler himself”. Both China and the world regarded the opinions and hearts of the people as the country’s priorities. Therefore the return of the heart of the people should be the most important element in a return; the people’s hearts have not returned, so it can only be a transfer of governance. As the ultimate crucial element of importance, the hearts still waver.
Question: Do you agree that Hong Kong independence is the only way out?
Not the “only”, but this is a proposition that can be discussed within the scope of freedom of speech. Over the years, I have been advocating that “Hongkongers have the freedom of speech to discuss Hong Kong’s independence or any way out.” I have written articles for over 60 years, and the most precious to me is freedom, especially freedom of speech. Historian Chen Yinke’s words on the tombstone of Wang Guowei have been my North Star for many years. The inscription reads: “A scholar learns and studies to break away from the shackles of the Conventional Truth, such that the Ultimate Truth can be carried forward. If there is no freedom of thought, one might as well be dead.” “Teacher’s writings may sometimes be incomprehensible; teacher’s teachings may sometimes be debatable; but the spirit of independence, the freedom of thoughts, is the most sacred of all and illuminates like the Three Lights.”
The Conventional Truth (Sammuti Sacca) is the law of secular change in the Buddhist scriptures, which is different from the fixed Ultimate Truth (Paramattha Sacca); the “Three Lights” refers to the sun, the moon, and the stars.
“If there is no freedom of thought, one might as well be dead” means that even living, one would be like the walking dead. Freedom of thought is rooted in the spirit of independence. What is freedom? Hu Shi said, “freedom is relative to external restraints. If you get freedom but not independence, you are still a slave. Independence does not mean blindly following, not to be deceived, not to rely on status, not to rely on others. This is the spirit of independence.” Independent, its antonym is not unification, but dependent.
Political independence, under the one-party dictatorship of the “one country” full governance, its chances of success is nil, but the chance of being gifted democracy under the one-party dictatorship is probably minus one. Regardless of the political model, we learned over these years that the highest common factor for a way out for Hong Kong is autonomy. If the word “independence” is too sensitive for China, how about “non-dependence” or “autonomy” as the biggest aspirations of Hongkongers.
To equate self-determination with independence is conceptual befuddlement. Independence is a goal, self-determination is only a right stipulated in human rights conventions. Self-determination can lead to a variety of outcome, why must it be independence and not an ultimate unification under “One Country, One System? How uncanny!
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