One and half year since anti-extradition law movement, the HKSAR government has been trying its best to restore the social order. The cabinet has determined one of the fundamental issues that cause all the social upheaval has been the lack of national education.
This has brought us back to the debate back in 2012 — the controversy of anti-moral-and-national-education movement. Eight years later, the government makes no progress.
In fact, the perception of the need of national education in Hong Kong is very misleading as well.
Knowing about your country doesn’t mean to be being a patriot. The pro-establishment camp always criticises young people in Hong Kong does not know their country well, and therefore does not respect their country. Objectively speaking, this is true, to some extent. Hong Kong people do not respect the CCP regime by burning the five star flag, refusing to sing the national anthem. However, the criticism itself has logical fallacy: learning about your country does not mean to be nationalistic. You may know someone very well, but you do not respect them as a person, and so does China. And while most Hong Kong people know the meaning of the national flag and able to sing the national anthem, educational reform may not be a good solution.
For a long time, there has been a cultural or expectation gap between Mainland China and Hong Kong. Sometimes Chinese people do not understand why Hong Kong people never be proud of, if not appreciate, China’s revitalisation. In fact, Hong Kong people have been playing an important part of China’s economic reform. However, this only forms a bonding between China and Hong Kong through material interests in the past 40 years, not a cultural bonding. People seems to ignore that the formation of a sense of belonging takes longer, especially Hong Kong has only returned control of China for only 20 years. After the controversy in 2012, the HKSAR government should have learnt that national education reform may not be a good timing.
Lastly, you cannot force people to be nationalistic. The introduction of the National Anthem Ordinance and the National Security Law this year has signified that the intention to impose nationalism in Hong Kong by law. This is effective, indeed, from a governing perspective, but the effectiveness is only based on fear. Eventually, people will not respect you if they are just afraid of you.
Beijing and the HKSAR government should be patient on Hong Kong identity issue. It is an important lesson for Beijing, especially. If you cannot gain respect from your people wholeheartedly, this won’t happen in the international society.