林保華

HK-mainland row stinks of the CCP
By Paul Lin 林保華

Hong Kong has increasingly seen an influx of pregnant

mainland Chinese women giving birth in the territory to

gain residency rights. This influx has made it difficult

for pregnant Hong Kong women to receive maternity

assistance and has raised tensions between Hong Kongers

and mainlanders.

These tensions have triggered other incidents, such as

arguments about mainland Chinese tourists eating on the

subway, claims that shopping sprees by mainland Chinese

tourists have set off inflation in the territory, luxury

boutiques discriminating against Hong Kongers and

pandering to mainlanders, as well as mainland Chinese

academics teaching at Hong Kong universities fabricating

opinion polls for political purposes.

The situation took a turn for the worse when Peking

University professor Kong Qingdong (孔慶東) likened Hong

Kongers to dogs. This raised the level of the argument

from the people on the street, to the social elite at some

of the highest institutions of learning. At the same time,

the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in

Hong Kong and party mouthpieces named and criticized Hong

Kong academics that have not done as they were told. They

also branded people who thought of themselves more as

“Hong Kongers” rather than “Chinese” — based on a

recent opinion poll — as “subversive,” raising the

argument to the political sphere.

Young Hong Kongers have hit the streets in protest,

calling mainland tourists “locusts” — leading to a

standoff between “Hong Kong dogs” and “mainland

locusts.” In Chinese culture, dogs have little or no

value, while in Western cultures, they are treated as pets

and man’s best friend. Locusts, however, are viewed as

harmful pests.

On Jan. 30, Taiwan’s Chinese-language United Daily News

ran a ridiculous editorial. It said that one of the things

the Kong incident showed was that “maybe the restrictions

on expression in China are not as strict as observers

think.” In the writer’s view, the Chinese Communist

Party (CCP) actually tolerated “a professor spreading

coarse ethnic and regional hatred, and stirring up

hostilities between people in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.

”

While criticizing Kong, the editorial did not forget to

praise the CCP, which led to the whole incident being

misconstrued.

Compare Kong’s situation with what happened to Jiao

Guobiao (焦國標), a former professor of journalism at

Peking University. In late 2003, Jiao wrote an article

about challenging the CCP’s Publicity Department and was

kicked out of the university as a result. So, why is it

that Kong can sow seeds of ethnic and regional hatred and

be tolerated? The answer is simple: He has the support of

the CCP.

“Mixing in sand” is a major strategy used by the CCP to

undermine its opponents. As Hong Kong’s Basic Law allows

non-resident pregnant women into the territory to give

birth, the number of pregnant mainlanders has already

surpassed that of pregnant Hong Kongers. And by obtaining

residency through their newborns, they have become an

instrument for effecting a change in the population

structure of Hong Kong.

China allows these women to enjoy all the benefits of Hong

Kong residents in order to encourage more people to follow

suit. That is the reason Beijing ignores the public uproar

and the Hong Kong government has not dared take any

decisive action on its own.

The CCP is happy to see this standoff between “dogs” and

“locusts.” This is the old Chinese strategy of setting

foreign powers off against each other to weaken them,

which in the hands of the CCP is used to set different

groups off against each other. However, Hong Kongers must

realize that these “locusts” were reared by the CCP,

which is the culprit behind it all.

In the same way, the CCP stands to gain the most from the

domestic friction in Taiwan caused by the independence-

unification argument. The Democratic Progressive Party has

started equating the Republic of China with Taiwan as a

display of internal unity toward other nations. However,

China insists on the so-called “1992 consensus” and its

“one China” principle, and uses the Chinese Nationalist

Party (KMT) to divide Taiwan and create ethnic and

regional conflict.

Ethnic conflict is bound to result wherever the CCP gets

involved. Just as in Tibet and Xinjiang, this is now

happening in Hong Kong.

Paul Lin is a political commentator.

Translated by Drew Cameron