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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Two decades after handover, scant love for China among HK youth

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HONG KONG: Hong Kong student activist Chau Ho-Oi, born in the year the Asian financial hub returned to Chinese rule 20 years ago, recalls the sense of pride she once felt toward mainland China.


Sitting with her parents when she was 11, Chau watched the 2008 Beijing Olympics on television in awe and felt “excitement in the heart” as China’s athletes swept the board with 48 gold medals, more than any other nation.


“I thought China was great,” Chau said. “If you asked me back then if I was Chinese, I’d say yes.”


Fast forward nine years, however, and the former British colony’s first post-handover generation is increasingly turning its back on the mainland.


“Now... I don’t want to say I am Chinese,” said Chau, who was arrested during mass pro-democracy protests in 2014. “It gives me a very negative feeling. Even if you ask me 100 times, I would say the same thing.”


According to a University of Hong Kong survey released on Tuesday that polled 120 youths, only 3.1 per cent of those aged between 18 to 29 identify themselves as “broadly Chinese”. The figure stood at 31 per cent when the regular half-yearly survey started 20 years ago.


In interviews with 10 Hong Kong youths born in 1997 including Chau, all of them, including an immigrant from mainland China, said they primarily identify themselves as “Hong Kongers” and their loyalty lies with the city.


The territory became a British colony in stages in the 19th century and returned to Chinese rule under a “one country, two systems” formula which guarantees it wide-ranging autonomy, including an independent judiciary and freedom of speech, for at least 50 years.


The 20-year-olds’ attitudes were hardened, they said, by a series of shadowy manoeuvres suggesting a slow squeeze on those freedoms by Communist Party rulers in Beijing.


In 2012, a skinny 15-year-old student named Joshua Wong led tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents to protest against a mandatory national education curriculum they claimed would “brainwash” students by promoting Chinese patriotism. The curriculum was eventually shelved.


Two years later, the “Occupy” movement, with Wong at the helm, sought to pressure Beijing to allow full democracy in the election of its leader, demands that were ultimately ignored after 79 days of street protests.


The abduction of several Hong Kong booksellers by mainland agents and China’s efforts to disqualify two young lawmakers who support Hong Kong independence have also shaken confidence in the “one-country, two systems” arrangement.


Student Candy Lau fears Hong Kong will become more controlled.


— Reuters


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