Abstract
In this chapter, I wish to bring together the analysis of the genealogy of the Chinese working class as presented in Chapter 2 to discuss the effects of governmentality on both groups of everyday workers (see Chapters 3 and 4) who are targeted for being “marginalized” as the “deserving poor” in continuously submitting themselves to their given conditions.
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Notes
- 1.
The British occupied Hong Kong under three so-called “unequal treaties”. The first was the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, which resolved the Qing’s defeat in the 1839–1842 Opium War, ceded Hong Kong Island to the British Crown in perpetuity. The second was the 1860 Conventions of Peking, which settled the 1856–1860s Opium War, ceded the Kowloon Peninsula to Britain permanently. Finally, Britain secured a 99-year lease of the New Territories (North of the Kowloon Peninsula) following the Qing’s defeat in the 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese War which due to expire on 30 June 1997.
- 2.
Based on Deng Xiaoping’s principle of “One Country, Two Systems”, the governments of Britain and China formally signed the 1984 Joint Declaration to announce China’s resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong, including Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula, and the New Territories, in 1997. Despite the elections of the Hong Kong government or Chief Executive (CE) would be centrally controlled by the CCP, the Sino-British Joint Declaration granted the preservation of the preexisting legal, economic and social systems to retain “a high degree of autonomy” in Hong Kong for fifty years upon the city transfer to become the Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. These assurances, following the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre (see Chapter 2), were further enshrined in the Basic Law (1990) that guaranteed the continuity of the existing individual freedom of speech, press, publication, association, assembly, and demonstration. This framework is heralded as a blueprint for Taiwan’s reunification with China.
- 3.
Throughout the century-long British colonial rule, Hong Kong transformed from a barren rock of fishing village into one of the world’s important financial centers with 7.5 million people enjoying one of the highest living standards in East Asia. See (2020) The World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/country/hong-kong-sar-china, accessed 15 August 2020.
- 4.
While many Hong Kong inhabitants were immigrants (or refugees) who fled the CCP rule from the Mainland to Hong Kong during the Chinese Civil Wars in the late 1940s and during the subsequent socio-political turbulence such as the 1958–1961 Great Leap Forward and the 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution, they distance themselves from the Mainlanders with their self-identification Hong Kongers (Heunggongyuhn 香港人) is generated from their superiority complex that they are more Westernized, civilized, and well-educated compared to those lazy, dirty, uncivilized, and uneducated Ah Chann 阿燦” (Chinamen); “Dai Luk Por” (or mainland women 大陸婆), and “Dai Luk Lo” (or mainland men大陸佬). The identity Hong Kongers thus indicated their desire of being “apart from China” rather than “a part of China”. See Ma, Ngok (2015) ‘The Rise of “Anti-China” Sentiments in Hong Kong and the 2012 Legislative Council Elections’, China Review 15(1): 39–66.
- 5.
Article 23 of the Basic Law specified that the Hong Kong government to prohibit “any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies”. See (2021) Basic Law, https://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/basiclaw/chapter2.html, accessed 11 May 2021.
- 6.
Umbrella Movement was a series of protests that also known as “Occupy Central” where the protesters adopted the “occupation” concept by occupying the main thoroughfares across the city for 79 days in hopes of the disruption could pressure the government to negotiate.
- 7.
The Five Demands are: complete withdrawal of the extradition bill; retraction of the “riot” characterisation; release the arrested protesters; establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into police brutality towards protesters, and resignation of the Hong Kong government Carrie Lam and the implementation of universal suffrage for CE and Legislative Council elections.
- 8.
“Be water” protest tactics in Hong Kong are adopted from the philosophy of the Kung Fu movie star Bruce Lee that to be “formless, shapeless, like water can flow, or it can crash […] be water, my friend”. See Youtube (2014) Bruce Lee be as Water My Friend, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJMwBwFj5nQ, accessed 3 March 2021.
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Leung, E. (2021). Conclusion. In: The (Re)Making of the Chinese Working Class . Palgrave Debates in Business History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83313-8_5
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