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Journey
to My Home: Hong Kong and China Rediscovering the Meaning of Labor Activism, Being Chinese and Chinese Nationalism By: Lee Siu Hin |
Part Three: Hong Kong: Looking Down From Lion Mountain to Victoria Harbor
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| Photo: Currently there's over hundred thousands Philippno maids working at Hong Kong. Every Sunday, thousands of them will assemble at Hong Kong's central district for one-day relaxation. |
Looking down from the top of Kowloon's
Lion Mountain-one of the main symbols of Hong Kong- there's no doubt this
is a highly modern, socially & culturally exciting, commercially &
bureaucratically efficient city of seven million people, operating the
world's biggest cargo port at Victoria Harbor. Although a world-class
financial center and the key airport hub of the Far East, the city is
smaller than the San Francisco Bay Area. The beautiful night lights of
downtown and Victoria Harbor give Hong Kong the nickname "Pearl of
the Orient."
Hong Kong was a British colony for 150 years, ceded by China after the
Opium Wars of 1840 and finally returned to China in 1997. During the colonial
period it was the military and transportation hub for the British empire
in the Far East, and also served as the British gateway to China (in addition
to Macau, 100 km west of Hong Kong, a former Portuguese colony for 400
years, which was returned to China in 1999).
Anybody who knows Chinese history understands that the Opium War of 1840
happened because of the opium trade. During the early 1800s, the British
complained of the huge Chinese export surplus to England, but then "discovered"
that exporting opium from India to China was the best way to balance the
trade-and, not incidentally, to control China's financial system as well.
The East India Company in India and the Jardin Company, the biggest British
colonial company in Hong Kong of the time (it still is today), were among
the main "middlemen" shipping and selling opium to China.
China started losing huge amounts of money to England and the emperor
banned the opium trade and arrested the British drug smugglers. England
saw that as a opportunity to declare war and invade China, with the approval
of England's Queen Victoria. China lost the war and England demanded huge
financial compensation, taking over Hong Kong Island. To celebrate the
occupation of Hong Kong, they named the waterfront Victoria Harbor.
Therefore, historically and today, what happened in Hong Kong is fundamentally
a struggle between European imperialists and China, and a struggle between
the pro-British, anti communist/anti-China right-wing community and the
pro-China community. The British (along with the U.S.) have always attempted
to keep their political, social and financial interests and influence
permanently in this part of the world.
Hong Kong has always been one of the key organizing centers of the modern
Chinese labor and revolutionary movements. From the revolutionary leader
Sun Yat Sen's revolution of 1911 to overthrow the empire and the creation
of the Republic of China (ROC), through the communist and trade-unionist
movements of the 1920's and 30's and their leadership in the famous yearlong
general strike of Hong Kong and Guangzhou, to the communist revolution
of the 1940's and the formation of the People's Republic of China (PRC)
in 1949, Chinese activists in Hong Kong have played a key role.
On the other hand, for their own interests, Hong Kong's British-colonial
government historically has played a negative role in the people's movements
in Hong Kong and China, supporting the warlords' attempts to undermine
Sun Yat Sen's revolution. After World War II Hong Kong became a key battleground
in the Cold War, in the Chinese revolution of 1949. Hong Kong became the
main port for military transport and vacationing British and U.S. forces
during the Korean War of the 1950's, the Vietnam War of the 1960s-70s,
and the Gulf War of the 1990's.
While the pro-British colonial government "welcomed" the political
and economical refugees from China who fled to Hong Kong, along with business
people with large sums of money, during the 1950's and 60's they deported
thousands of activists, students and labor organizers from Hong Kong to
China, accusing them of being "communist sympathizers."
While the British used brutal military force to suppress anyone who worked
against them, they also applied a "carrot and stick" policy,
hand-picking and creating an elite class from the local people, giving
them "sugar" to get them to run the colony for them, and creating
a strong upper class of British and Chinese business tycoons (aka Tai
Pans) loyal to London to steal China's wealth for them.
Since the 1960's and 70's when the colonial government felt they were
losing popularity to the left-wing political and trade-unionist movement
supported by China, they started to allow the colony's wealth to trickle
down in order to create middle-class "elites." The colonial
government funded and created different social and labor organizations,
gave them financial support, promised free education, good jobs and higher
social status (elite class), and created the notion of groups of "superior"
Chinese in the world.
By contrast, people from mainland China (and left labor, pro-China forces)
were painted as low class, stereotyped as uneducated bumpkins who only
deserve to work in low paying menial labor jobs to redeem their social
status. Even today, most Hong Kongers are proud to identify as a member
of the "elite." Politically generally pro-western, many of them
working in management and professional-level jobs, or owning a business,
they control most media and professional associations/unions in Hong Kong.
In additions to the pro-British forces, Americans also used their money
to create pro-American forces, as well as Taiwan's KMT Party (which was
defeated by the Communists and fled to Taiwan), using their money to create
an anti-communist/anti-China community. These disparate right-wing factions
don't always see eye to eye, but when the time comes to unite politically
against the Chinese government or the Hong Kong left, they get in bed
together pretty fast.
The left in Hong Kong generally advocates Chinese nationalism, pro-labor
and anti-imperialist platforms (although for the past twenty years, the
last two items are getting weaker), and has strong working class support.
During the 60's and 70's the ones who fought for workers' rights and represented
Hong Kong's poorest working class were the left-wing trade-unionist movements.
Influenced by the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960's, they were
very militant and also anti-colonialist. The colonial government responded
by labeling many of them "terrorists," arresting them and deporting
them to China.
Today in Hong Kong one finds a wide spectrum of political affiliations,
all the way from very wealthy leftists (the so-called "red capitalists")
to poor right-wingers still living in Hong Kong's pro-Taiwan Ghetto (yes,
there's such a thing in Hong Kong), as well as many non-partisan working
class and middle class Hong Kongers. The fight over preserving the status
quo between the Hong Kong elite/middle-class community and the left is
fundamentally a political/ideological fight between the pro-British/anti-China
elite/middle-class community on one side and the pro-China/labor community
on the other. The result of this Hong Kong political struggle will determine
the future political destiny not just of Hong Kong, but of China itself.
Why? At least half of the Hong Kong population is working or owns a business
involving international trade and export manufacturing with China and
the rest of the world. Many of them happily identify themselves as the
"elite" who created the economical miracle of Hong Kong (as
most people say in Hong Kong), and they own factories in China, and employ
Filipina maids in Hong Kong. They have never heard the term "sweatshop."
Part Four: Labor in
Hong Kong & China 101