A Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, Chung Kam-lam, was arrested by police.
On the eve of a major police arrest of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) issued on Jan. 5 a revised “Regulations on the Work of the United Front of the Communist Party of China,” which strengthens the requirements for the united front in Hong Kong and Macau. There is even news that Beijing will set up a “cultural central enterprise” in Hong Kong. Do these moves mean that the Chinese government not only wants to remove the pro-democracy faction in Hong Kong, but also wants to implement a cultural transformation of Hong Kong? And how effective will this transformation be?
Early January is also the coldest time of the year in Hong Kong. In the midst of the cold wind, the local political and social situation in Hong Kong is also showing signs of a sharp turn down.
The signal to operate
On the other hand, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) issued the revised “Regulations on the Work of the United Front of the CPC” the day before (Jan. 5), adding two new provisions on “supporting the integration of Hong Kong and Macao into the overall development of the country” and “safeguarding the interests of national sovereignty, security and development”.
This gives the impression that the Chinese government is trying to “operate” on Hong Kong society on all fronts.
Another news story further reveals the concrete meaning of China’s United Front policy. According to Hong Kong’s Sing Tao Daily, the Chinese government is planning to build a “cultural central enterprise” in Hong Kong with hundreds of billions of Hong Kong dollars in assets to increase its soft power in Hong Kong, and the secretary-general of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong, Wen Hongwu, is also involved in the preparatory work.
The Chinese Communist Party’s cultural policy toward Hong Kong has its own political overtones.
Hong Kong democrats hold a press conference to protest the arrest of pro-democracy activists.
In the impression of Xu Zhen, research director of the Hong Kong Chi Ming Institute, a Hong Kong-based think tank, the Chinese Communist Party has a century-long history of organized cultural infiltration in Hong Kong, “back in the black-and-white era, there was some propaganda about so-called ‘positive values. ‘ content, and its whole set of things leaned more to the left. …… to the 1970s and 1980s, there were also many Mainland-produced films released in Hong Kong, some of which had obvious political connotations.”
For years, the Hong Kong publishing scene has been dominated even more by the Chinese government for a long time. “The various publishing houses in Hong Kong have different names, but almost all of them can be traced back to the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government. So basically you can say that the Chinese government has taken a dominant position in Hong Kong’s cultural scene,” argues Victoria Tin-bor Hui, a Hong Kong-born professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame.
She added that even in the world of film and television, the Chinese government’s influence has become so deep that Hong Kong actors and singers, large and small, are less likely to speak out.
According to reports, the “cultural central enterprise” under preparation in Hong Kong will be based on the United Publishing Group, Bauhinia magazine, Silverado and other Chinese-funded institutions, covering publishing, journalism, film and television, literature and arts, and many other aspects. From this, we can see that the Chinese government has already laid out its united cultural policy towards Hong Kong.
“White Zone” or “Liberation Zone”?
In a recent online commentary, Hong Kong pro-democracy commentator Liu Shiliang pointed out that the establishment of a cultural central enterprise is just a way to turn the cultural business controlled by the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong from a “white zone” to a “liberated zone” in the struggle for cultural consciousness, and to strengthen the ideological education of Hong Kong people through culture.
According to Professor Xu Tianbo, Hong Kong’s culture has been transformed since the implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong. “The National Security Law has overstepped the Hong Kong Basic Law, which means that a comprehensive transformation of Hong Kong society has begun. Since it is a comprehensive transformation, the cultural field will also be transformed, because the Chinese Communist Party cannot let let any field be left out of this transformation.”
But Xu Zhen questioned the effectiveness of the so-called cultural transformation, “Its (Beijing’s) effect of keeping Hong Kong people from doing certain things through executive, legislative and judicial means is relatively quick and obvious, and change is relatively easy. But in reverse, using a cultural, soft power approach to attract you and guide you, this is not so easy to do.”
The key, Xu Zhen implied, is that overall Hong Kong people’s values differ from Beijing’s side.
According to opinion surveys released by the Hong Kong Institute of Public Opinion Research, the proportion of Hong Kong people aged 18 to 29 who identify as “Hong Kong citizens” has gradually increased in recent years, soaring to nearly 80 percent in 2019 and 2020, while the proportion of those who identify themselves as Chinese has been declining.
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