Evan Fowler 方禮倫
不屬單一種族、國籍，土生土長香港人。
2014-6-11 20:12:50
As I ate lunch today with a friend at House News, discussing our reaction to Beijing's release yesterday of a White Paper on Hong Kong, I received two message from another concerned friend.
The first message expressed shock, though not from what was written. Beijing has issued several prior declarations implying the nature and parameters of the relationship it has with Hong Kong. It is a relationship that is, ironically, colonial in nature — the focus on economic freedoms and development; the absence of any perceived right for political freedom; the denial not only of a people's right to genuine self-government, but a denial in principle that people may even constitute a source of political authority at all. The social contract has not so much been violated as denied (and exactly how this squares with the supposed legitimacy of "communist" authority is a question we should be asking). Authority in Hong Kong, Beijing makes clear, is based upon brute force, and rests with a coterie of men 2000 km away, unelected and unaccountable to the people of this city. Let us be under no illusions.
The shock, of which I share, is that Beijing would be so blatant. It is, as my friend noted, "callous and hurtful", though I believe my reply that it was "bullying and autocratic" was closer to the truth. Let us be clear, this is not a White Paper at all. By definition a White Paper is not a statement of policy, but, to quote Doerr, "a tool of participatory democracy". The statement released by Xinhua yesterday is not meant to clarify or persuade. Neither is it meant to engage the people of Hong Kong in exercising their rights. It is a declaration.
The White Paper makes no attempt to address even the most obvious counter claims, for example, that as an equal signatory of the Joint Declaration, upon which the Basic Law was drafted in accordance, Britain may in fact have a right to challenge Beijing's interpretation. My point is not that Britain does have this right, but only that it is conceivable and that any attempt to clarify would address this. Sadly the British consulate, in standing by the HKSAR government response has showed no desire to stand up for the 6 million people it handed back to China in 1997. The challenge, both intellectual and in action, remains firmly that of the Hong Kong people — a challenge the people are meeting in the current protests on the streets to the statement a few hours ago from the Bar Association confirming our right to legal independence.
So far all I've written should be a pretty straight forward perspective. It was my friend's second message that caught my interest. He wrote:
With you and me I feel there is an additional layer of pain, perhaps... that we are not truly considered to be part of Hong Kong as we are not Chinese. It was never said outright, but in their phrasing they exclude us.
My friend is Hong Kong born and raised. He is Eurasian. Like me, should we be forced to leave this city it would be as refugees. He lives as a local, knows this community as his own and is as comfortable in Cantonese slang as he is in English. But, and this is important, does Beijing consider him when they appeal to our city being "Chinese"?
It is easy to read the White Paper as referring not to being racially Chinese but as a Chinese national, in which case Eurasians and other so-called racially "Non-Chinese" still apply. But having received my friend's message and returned to the document I found myself reading it from a fresh perspective. An already dictatorial document that weaves its thin thread of legitimacy from "Chinese Unity" now seems to lose all notion of support. I couldn't help but wonder whether any of the authors of this document were, as my Eurasian friend was recently referred to in Shanghai, one of China's "foreign looking people". I very much doubt it. The document is not only indicative of the kind of relationship Beijing demands of Hong Kong, but also of the implied position of those who are clearly not part of this central national narrative that they are constructing. If Hong Kong people feel denied their rights as both Chinese and Hong Kong citizens by Beijing, then what of the status of those non-Chinese minorities that are as much a part of this city and its community? In the language of the debate as it stands these people are being left on the sidelines.
What makes this situation sad is that people like my friend and I do feel an additional layer of pain, not because we are not Chinese but because, in many ways, we are. Much of our families are Chinese. We have relations who are embraced by this narrative whilst we are not. Unlike a foreigner taking citizenship we have not given ourselves to this city and it's people, but rather have known no other home. If Hong Kong people are being forced to give up their home for an unrepresentative, unaccountable and distant concept of nation, do remember that for some there isn't even a national narrative in which they may be placed. From this perspective the White Paper seems to make even less sense.
