Native-Place Networks and Political Mobilization: The Case of Post-Handover Hong Kong

Native-place associations have played an indispensable role in the global migration of ethnic Chinese. Although there has been growing attention to their political role in advancing the Chinese state’s interests, few studies have looked into how they are organized and how they operate vis-à-vis the state. This article focuses on post-handover Hong Kong, where native-place associations, despite their long presence, are still growing in number and sophistication after the 1997 handover. It posits that native-place associations there are forming a “cultural nexus” through which the Chinese state fosters political mobilization in support of its interests and policies. Based on an original set of event and biographical data, it shows that native-place associations are consolidating into a massive network connected by power-seeking elites. It also demonstrates how these associations seek to renew the significance of native-place and national identities. The findings point to how native-place associations may serve as a powerful cultural space for the Chinese state to project its influence offshore.

Borders and bridges

This study examines the construction of linguistic identities at a time of significant political tension in Hong Kong, with a focus on Hong Kong’s three official languages: Cantonese, the most widely spoken variety of Chinese in Hong Kong; English, the longest serving official language of Hong Kong; and Putonghua, the official language of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which became an official language in Hong Kong after the 1997 Handover of Hong Kong to PRC rule. Given the current political tensions between Hong Kong and the PRC, particularly in light of grassroots political movements such as the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the ongoing 2019 civil unrest due to the proposed introduction of an extradition treaty between Hong Kong and mainland China, the status of Hong Kong’s three languages is particularly interesting. Past research has primarily focused on the perceived value of these three languages in terms of instrumentality and integrativeness. The current study expands previous research by focusing on how the participants construct a linguistic identity of the self vs. a national language identity for Hong Kong, particularly within or in contrast to a national language identity of the PRC.

Multilingualism in Hong Kong’s Formal and Informal Settings: A Brief Historical Review of The Development from The Early 1900s To the Late 2010s

This article aims at tracing back the making of multilingualism in Hong Kong from a socio-historical viewpoint. It primarily illustrates the linguistic profiles of Cantonese, English, and Putonghua in official domains throughout the colonial period and after the 1997 handover, secondarily describing their roles in Hongkongers’ daily life. The situation of other minor languages is mentioned in passing. The snapshots reveal that a) Cantonese has developed to be a powerless lingua franca of Hongkongers, b) English has become a powerful second language with high economic value that hugely outweighs Cantonese, and that c) Putonghua has been similar to a foreign language despite its official status on the mainland. Other heritage languages of ethnic minorities have existed since the early colonial period, but they have never entered the mainstream or vastly impacted the three dominating languages. The discussion concludes that Hong Kong has yet to be a typical multilingual metropolis where citizens are fluent or native in multiple languages. It is still fluctuating in between monolingualism and multilingualism, however, showing an inclination to the latter.

Conducting Studies on Person-Centered Career Interest Profiles: An Illustrative Example in Hong Kong

Among the approaches to the study of career interests, the person-centered profile approach (i.e., studying the career interest profiles of individuals), rather than the traditional construct-centered approach, has gained more attention in recent years. In our research, we intend to advance our understanding of career interests with the person-centered profile approach and address some important conceptual and methodological issues raised by previous studies. Based on the cultural context of Hong Kong after the 1997 handover, we hypothesized four general career interest profiles for Hong Kong high school graduates. Using a sample of senior secondary school graduates who were not admitted into undergraduate programs and a cohort sample of first-year university students, we found support for this hypothesis. This classification was validated by its relationships with career decisiveness, parents’ open communication style, and life satisfaction. Our research provides guidelines to test the validity of the proposed forms of career interest profiles.

Posthistoricity

This chapter examines Hong Kong-Mainland co-productions made under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA). CEPA facilitated the collaboration between Mainland Chinese investors and Hong Kong filmmakers to produce films that are supposed to cater to audiences in both regions. This triggered a renewed effort to individuate, subjectivise, and autonomise Hong Kong’s sociopolitical voice and position in these co-productions, which requires an active rewriting and re-understanding of extraterritoriality in the aftermath of the 1997 handover as a form of posthistoricity: (1) as a continual performance of a civic society that had already failed under global neoliberalism; (2) as an invocation of a new assembly of biopolitical lives that are eager to form a new civic society. This chapter first explicates the sociopolitical conditions and affects in Hong Kong after 1997. It then expounds how CEPA emerged out of a complex process of industrial transformation under neoliberalism between the 1990s and the early 2000s and how scholars evaluate the first ten years of Hong Kong-Mainland co-productions after CEPA. With such a background in mind, it scrutinises how Hong Kong filmmakers confront the crisis of authorship under CEPA in three registers––industrial, creative, and sociopolitical––with close attention to Johnnie To as a case study.

Don’t Ask, Do(n’t) Tell: Homeschooling in Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s history of compulsory schooling (as opposed to education) commenced under colonial rule and has been maintained by the local government following the 1997 Handover. Beyond the exception of “reasonable cause,” homeschooling, or elective home education, is in principle prohibited under the laws of Hong Kong. However, there is evidence of a growing homeschooling community in Hong Kong that relies on loopholes in the law and an apparent de facto government policy to operate. This article sets out the background, legal framework, and homeschooling practice in Hong Kong. It criticizes the current situation from the perspectives of legal certainty and children’s rights. The author suggests that the government should take action to devise clear laws and public policy in relation to elective home education.

The emergence and transformation of self-determination claims in Hong Kong and Catalonia: A historical institutionalist perspective

Using a historical institutionalist framework emphasizing the importance of transformative events, this paper seeks to explain the sudden emergence of self-determination claims in Hong Kong and their transformation into separatist ones in Catalonia. The paper argues that the inflexibility of the state in addressing moderate demands for regional autonomy has played a major role in the emergence and radicalization of these demands. In Hong Kong, the 1997 Handover from British to Chinese sovereignty was originally presented as an opportunity for self-governance under the principle of “Hong Kong People ruling Hong Kong” and the “One Country, Two Systems” formula. If Hong Kong nationalism was practically unheard of in the early years of the Handover, the unconciliatory attitude of the central government towards moderate demands for the actualization of the autonomy and democratization frameworks vested in Hong Kong’s Basic Law has directly contributed to the formation of today’s emerging self-determination movement. In Catalonia, the 2010 decision of the Spanish Constitutional Court to annul some articles of the reform to the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia and to interpret others narrowly represented a transformative event that took Catalonia onto the pathway of secessionist politics. The secessionist turn was then further fed by the on-going refusal of the central government to negotiate with the Catalan government, notably on the notion of a popular consultation on the political future of the Autonomous Community.

Hong Kong's Postcolonial Education Reform

The Hong Kong education system is at a crucial point in its trajectory, and changes to public education also reflect broader social, economic and political changes within Hong Kong and globally. Since the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from British control to China, Hong Kong has struggled to develop its own identity under the One Country, Two Systems premise. One of the compulsory courses in the Hong Kong curriculum known as liberal studies, introduced in 2009, provided a useful departure point for exploring many social tensions occurring in Hong Kong. Exploring education reform through liberal studies explains how these social tensions manifest within education, and how these educational tensions manifest within the broader society. Contemporary trends in Hong Kong's education were examined, including the public exams, the proliferation of shadow education and the expansion of self-financed tertiary education options for Hong Kong students. Tensions in Hong Kong are further explained through the notions of post-colonialism. The liberal studies debate mirror aspects of the broader economic, political, and social tensions as they relate to Hong Kong youth, and Hong Kong society at-large, and this article endeavors to explore these tensions through the lens of liberal studies as it relates to education discourse in Hong Kong. Through a combination of literature review from academic and mainstream sources, the article establishes the groundwork for further empirical work in order to gain a more in-depth understanding of the issues and tensions in Hong Kong.

Election will reveal China's position on Hong Kong

Subject The outlook for Hong Kong's chief executive election. Significance On March 26, Hong Kong will elect a new chief executive to head the city's government for the next five years. He or she will be elected not by universal suffrage but by a 1,194-member Election Committee. This year's election is the first since the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China where the outcome is uncertain: the incumbent, Leung Chun-ying, has decided not to run for a second term, and there are two potential successors acceptable to Beijing. Impacts Leung is so unpopular that the winner will have greater ability to manoeuvre simply by virtue of not being him. At very least, the winner will consolidate support among the establishment; however, the honeymoon will be short. The election will shed light on Beijing's influence and intentions in the city.