n early May, Hong Kong “elected” John Lee as its new leader. The inverted commas are intentional as Lee was the only candidate, received over 99% of the votes from the Chinese Communist Party(CCP)-approved and pre-vetted 1,500 electors. Lee, a former police officer and Hong Kong’s hardline security chief had overseen the crackdown on the pre-democracy protests that erupted, most recently, in the wake of Hong Kong’s new national security law. He succeeds Carrie Lam and inherits a markedly changed Hong Kong, one whose democracy is sharply curtailed, faces very little—if any—real opposition, and is all but dominated by Beijing, whose quiet management is becoming increasingly vocal.
His election is one of several recent nails in the coffin of the territory’s attempt to find its own identity, an effort brilliantly captured by Louisa Lim in her new book “Indelible City”—an unexpected delight to have found (courtesy of the Economist, no less).
It is an exceptionally timely book. As this review was preparing to go to print, police in Hong Kong arrested Cardinal Joseph Zen under the territory’s new draconian national security law—an all-encompassing piece of legislation that virtually cements Beijing’s control over the territory. The Cardinal is one of four trustees of a financial and legal aid fund formed to help those arrested in Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests. The erosion of Hong Kong’s systemic independence continues to be on display for the world to watch, and the citizens of Hong Kong to suffer.
A journalist and author of a previous book on the erasure of Tiananmen Square from China’s memory, Lim brings this territory and its seemingly never-ending identity crisis vividly to life. Lim’s writing and approach are almost the ideal of a travel book, elements of which this book has, but it is of course, much more than. She places Hong Kong itself at the center of the story, not as an annex to London or Beijing’s mythmaking. She explores the history of the territory and searches for its own myths. In so doing she finds some, but more than that she finds a place in flux and under siege; a place fighting to define itself and chart its own course even as it is inexorably shaped and dominated by the CCP.
Lim explores the dynamics of competing myths about Hong Kong—British dominion and its prior history as a “barren rock” and Beijing’s counternarrative that it’s always been a part of greater China. She writes, too, of the re-discovery of the myth of the Lo Ting, fish-headed mermen of sorts – an indigenous myth unique to Hong Kong. More than that she brings the people of Hong Kong and Hong Kong itself to life in a way few will have encountered. It is a deeply personal book, given her family’s connections to the city—her father was a civil administrator under the British and her mother became a historian, exploring the city’s graveyards, among other sites—and that brings a richness to the writing that is far more evocative than outside accounts could be.
A key figure in Hong Kong’s pursuit of its own identity is a decidedly unexpected person—Tsang Tsou Choi—known as the King of Kowloon. He is a curious figure for a city to unify around. Possibly mentally ill, he laid claim to the Kowloon peninsula (hence the king moniker), graffitiing only government property with his ill-formed calligraphy. Lim charts the King’s rise, his reach across the territory, and his political and artistic influences in Hong Kong. He is an enigma, but that is fitting for a territory seeking to find itself. More importantly he is a decidedly Hong Kong creation—neither British nor CCCP, but distinctly their own.
Lim’s telling of negotiations between the British and the Chinese governments prior to the handover is striking and does not reflect well on London. Here again Hong Kong itself was a mere bystander or observer to decisions over its fate in both the proceedings and outcome. A group of Hong Kong officials known as the “Unofficials” for their informal role in the negotiations warned of the potential faults and pitfalls of the agreement with Beijing, but were ignored by both London and Beijing. When the actual handover happened, the sole representative of Hong Kong was standing in between the delegations from the United Kingdom and China, both of whom had to enter at the same time to avoid a diplomatic spat—as they were equal, whilst Hong Kong was barely relevant.
Yet, it is London’s cultivation of Hong Kong—the once “barren rock”— the importation of British institutions, customs, law, and business that laid the foundation for its future success. The liberalism that the United Kingdom engendered there—however illiberal it was practiced towards Hong Kongers—is what makes China’s pursuits such an anathema to the territory’s very nature.
The outcome and eventualities surrounding Hong Kong’s relationship with mainland China should not be surprising, yet they still seem to surprise nonetheless. Beijing’s steadily creeping presence feels inevitable, whether via the “locusts” as Lim describes mainland Chinese descending on Hong Kong’s malls and shopping districts or the erosion of political independence by Hong Kong’s elected officials. In hindsight, the hope that “one country, two systems” policy would be respected by Beijing appears increasingly naïve. What hope did Hong Kong have of maintaining its own independent identity when China in its own mythology holds that the territory is and has always been part of China, torn away by the perfidious British?
Lim explores how Hong Kong’s identify was slowly eroded following the handover. Places of gathering were bulldozed to make way for development, museums were censored and re-written, and Hong Kong’s history is airbrushed out by CCP censors. Lim’s presentation is powerful and doubly tragic—a place clearly struggling to find its own identity at a time when a larger power aims to standardize history to one narrative—that of Beijing.
Woven throughout the book are fears not just of Beijing’s crushing of Hong Kong within the territory, but its reach and influence beyond Hong Kong itself—fears that are not unfounded. Clive Hamilton and Maerike Ohlberg masterfully chart the reach of the CCP and its chilling effect on dialogue and discourse in their book “Hidden Hand”. It is less that Lim and her fellow students in Melbourne would be targeted overseas and more that Chinese authorities would (and indeed have) sought to persecute family and friends in Hong Kong and mainland China. The fears of such retaliation by proxy are certainly enough to dampen discourse and, in Lim’s case, raise the risk of her doctoral dissertation from “low” to “high” in the university’s academic risk calculus.
Hong Kong’s attempts at maintaining its nominal independence or one of the two systems in question led to the Umbrella Movement of 2014 and widespread protests at the imposition of the security law in 2020. The latter criminalized secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign powers, yet left the definition of all these worryingly vague. Many saw this as further proof of Beijing’s intentions to dominate Hong Kong, erode what little independence remained, and standardize its legal system with that of mainland China. Whilst the protests generated widespread international support, there was very little in practice any foreign country could do—what could London or Washington do when Beijing mobilized its forces to quell the protests? What’s more the outbreak of COVID-19 and Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine all but ensured the world’s attention was elsewhere.
Lim writes poignantly at the open and the close of the book of trying to maintain her journalistic independence, but finding herself swept up in the moment, painting protest banners clandestinely on a roof and, later, reporting on the riots. “Indelible City” is a haunting elegy of sorts for Hong Kong, a place full of life and soul, but which is still trying to find its true self, something that China will almost certainly ensure will never be found, or will only allow the discovery of one approved by Beijing.
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Hong Kong's Search for Identity Amidst China's Rise
Hong Kong. Photo by Dan Freeman via Unsplash.
May 14, 2022
In his latest review, Joshua Huminski discusses Louisa Lim's "Indelible City," which explores Hong Kong's attempt to discover and retain its own sense of identity - even as China's policies seek to make Hong Kong more Chinese.
I
n early May, Hong Kong “elected” John Lee as its new leader. The inverted commas are intentional as Lee was the only candidate, received over 99% of the votes from the Chinese Communist Party(CCP)-approved and pre-vetted 1,500 electors. Lee, a former police officer and Hong Kong’s hardline security chief had overseen the crackdown on the pre-democracy protests that erupted, most recently, in the wake of Hong Kong’s new national security law. He succeeds Carrie Lam and inherits a markedly changed Hong Kong, one whose democracy is sharply curtailed, faces very little—if any—real opposition, and is all but dominated by Beijing, whose quiet management is becoming increasingly vocal.
His election is one of several recent nails in the coffin of the territory’s attempt to find its own identity, an effort brilliantly captured by Louisa Lim in her new book “Indelible City”—an unexpected delight to have found (courtesy of the Economist, no less).
It is an exceptionally timely book. As this review was preparing to go to print, police in Hong Kong arrested Cardinal Joseph Zen under the territory’s new draconian national security law—an all-encompassing piece of legislation that virtually cements Beijing’s control over the territory. The Cardinal is one of four trustees of a financial and legal aid fund formed to help those arrested in Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests. The erosion of Hong Kong’s systemic independence continues to be on display for the world to watch, and the citizens of Hong Kong to suffer.
A journalist and author of a previous book on the erasure of Tiananmen Square from China’s memory, Lim brings this territory and its seemingly never-ending identity crisis vividly to life. Lim’s writing and approach are almost the ideal of a travel book, elements of which this book has, but it is of course, much more than. She places Hong Kong itself at the center of the story, not as an annex to London or Beijing’s mythmaking. She explores the history of the territory and searches for its own myths. In so doing she finds some, but more than that she finds a place in flux and under siege; a place fighting to define itself and chart its own course even as it is inexorably shaped and dominated by the CCP.
Lim explores the dynamics of competing myths about Hong Kong—British dominion and its prior history as a “barren rock” and Beijing’s counternarrative that it’s always been a part of greater China. She writes, too, of the re-discovery of the myth of the Lo Ting, fish-headed mermen of sorts – an indigenous myth unique to Hong Kong. More than that she brings the people of Hong Kong and Hong Kong itself to life in a way few will have encountered. It is a deeply personal book, given her family’s connections to the city—her father was a civil administrator under the British and her mother became a historian, exploring the city’s graveyards, among other sites—and that brings a richness to the writing that is far more evocative than outside accounts could be.
A key figure in Hong Kong’s pursuit of its own identity is a decidedly unexpected person—Tsang Tsou Choi—known as the King of Kowloon. He is a curious figure for a city to unify around. Possibly mentally ill, he laid claim to the Kowloon peninsula (hence the king moniker), graffitiing only government property with his ill-formed calligraphy. Lim charts the King’s rise, his reach across the territory, and his political and artistic influences in Hong Kong. He is an enigma, but that is fitting for a territory seeking to find itself. More importantly he is a decidedly Hong Kong creation—neither British nor CCCP, but distinctly their own.
Lim’s telling of negotiations between the British and the Chinese governments prior to the handover is striking and does not reflect well on London. Here again Hong Kong itself was a mere bystander or observer to decisions over its fate in both the proceedings and outcome. A group of Hong Kong officials known as the “Unofficials” for their informal role in the negotiations warned of the potential faults and pitfalls of the agreement with Beijing, but were ignored by both London and Beijing. When the actual handover happened, the sole representative of Hong Kong was standing in between the delegations from the United Kingdom and China, both of whom had to enter at the same time to avoid a diplomatic spat—as they were equal, whilst Hong Kong was barely relevant.
Yet, it is London’s cultivation of Hong Kong—the once “barren rock”— the importation of British institutions, customs, law, and business that laid the foundation for its future success. The liberalism that the United Kingdom engendered there—however illiberal it was practiced towards Hong Kongers—is what makes China’s pursuits such an anathema to the territory’s very nature.
The outcome and eventualities surrounding Hong Kong’s relationship with mainland China should not be surprising, yet they still seem to surprise nonetheless. Beijing’s steadily creeping presence feels inevitable, whether via the “locusts” as Lim describes mainland Chinese descending on Hong Kong’s malls and shopping districts or the erosion of political independence by Hong Kong’s elected officials. In hindsight, the hope that “one country, two systems” policy would be respected by Beijing appears increasingly naïve. What hope did Hong Kong have of maintaining its own independent identity when China in its own mythology holds that the territory is and has always been part of China, torn away by the perfidious British?
Lim explores how Hong Kong’s identify was slowly eroded following the handover. Places of gathering were bulldozed to make way for development, museums were censored and re-written, and Hong Kong’s history is airbrushed out by CCP censors. Lim’s presentation is powerful and doubly tragic—a place clearly struggling to find its own identity at a time when a larger power aims to standardize history to one narrative—that of Beijing.
Woven throughout the book are fears not just of Beijing’s crushing of Hong Kong within the territory, but its reach and influence beyond Hong Kong itself—fears that are not unfounded. Clive Hamilton and Maerike Ohlberg masterfully chart the reach of the CCP and its chilling effect on dialogue and discourse in their book “Hidden Hand”. It is less that Lim and her fellow students in Melbourne would be targeted overseas and more that Chinese authorities would (and indeed have) sought to persecute family and friends in Hong Kong and mainland China. The fears of such retaliation by proxy are certainly enough to dampen discourse and, in Lim’s case, raise the risk of her doctoral dissertation from “low” to “high” in the university’s academic risk calculus.
Hong Kong’s attempts at maintaining its nominal independence or one of the two systems in question led to the Umbrella Movement of 2014 and widespread protests at the imposition of the security law in 2020. The latter criminalized secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign powers, yet left the definition of all these worryingly vague. Many saw this as further proof of Beijing’s intentions to dominate Hong Kong, erode what little independence remained, and standardize its legal system with that of mainland China. Whilst the protests generated widespread international support, there was very little in practice any foreign country could do—what could London or Washington do when Beijing mobilized its forces to quell the protests? What’s more the outbreak of COVID-19 and Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine all but ensured the world’s attention was elsewhere.
Lim writes poignantly at the open and the close of the book of trying to maintain her journalistic independence, but finding herself swept up in the moment, painting protest banners clandestinely on a roof and, later, reporting on the riots. “Indelible City” is a haunting elegy of sorts for Hong Kong, a place full of life and soul, but which is still trying to find its true self, something that China will almost certainly ensure will never be found, or will only allow the discovery of one approved by Beijing.
