Hong Kong

A Colonial Past

Disagreement over the exchange of silver and opium between China and Britain led to the First Opium War in China that lasted from 1839 to 1842. One of the conditions imposed by Britain on China was that Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842. The trade that Hong Kong attracted as a British port encouraged immigration, mostly of individuals from neighboring Guangdong Province in China but also from other parts of China, Asia, and the West. From the early 1950s, Hong Kong's population increased rapidly, supporting its development into one of East Asia's prime manufacturing, financial, and service centers. After the introduction of economic reforms in the PRC in 1978, many of Hong Kong's industries moved to Guangdong Province.

Cantonese-speaking residents from Guangdong Province have always formed the vast majority of Hong Kong's population. Chinese minority ethnic groups include the Fujianese, the Hakka, the Shanghainese, and the Teochew. Cantonese is widely spoken among all groups of Chinese residents in Hong Kong who also adopted, to various extents, other elements from Cantonese culture. Siu-lun Wong, in Emigrant Entrepreneurs: Shanghai Industrialists in Hong Kong, observed that many Shanghainese who migrated to Hong Kong during the second half of the 20th century were highly skilled and established themselves as prosperous and influential individuals. Members of other Chinese minorities, however, often held less prominent positions.

A Change of Sovereignty

Except for its final years, the British colonial administration in Hong Kong provided Chinese residents with few political rights and social benefits. Benjamin K P. Leung, in Perspectives on Hong Kong Society, suggested that a “national identity” of Chinese residents in Hong Kong—that is, an identity that sees its interests as being different from the aims of the colonial government—only became widespread among Chinese residents during the 1970s when the colonial administration increased its accountability for the provision of housing, transport, and education. The preceding anti-imperialist movements in China, Leung observed, did not result in a widespread politicization of Chinese residents in Hong Kong.

Significant identity changes in Hong Kong's Chinese population stem from the fact that in 1984 Britain ceded to the request of the PRC to make Hong Kong part of China in 1997. This decision raised the question among the Chinese population of Hong Kong as to what it meant to be Chinese and gave rise to discussion on the relations among ethnicity, nationality, and governance. Britain's determination to increase the level of democracy during the final years of its rule had a strong impact on this discussion, namely by defining Hong Kong's way of life as democratic. The prospect of unification with the PRC, on the other hand, led to requests for more patriotic education in Hong Kong, especially for the younger Hong Kong-born Chinese residents.

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