After Autonomy: A Post-Mortem for Hong Kong’s first Handover, 1997–2019

184 Pages·2022·4.239 MB·English

by  Daniel F. Vukovich

After Autonomy:
A Post-Mortem for Hong Kong’s
first Handover, 1997−2019
Daniel F. Vukovich
After Autonomy: A Post-Mortem for Hong Kong’s
first Handover, 1997–2019
Daniel F. Vukovich
After Autonomy:
A Post-Mortem
for Hong Kong’s first
Handover,
1997–2019
Daniel F. Vukovich
Comparative Literature Program
University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
ISBN 978-981-19-4982-1 ISBN 978-981-19-4983-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4983-8
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Epigraph
No m an is an Iland, intire of itself.J ohn Donne [1623]
“The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the indi-
vidual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in
the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external
culture, and of the technique of life.” Georg Simmel [1903]
v
For Vicky
Acknowledgements
My work on this book began during 2019, and I was spurred on by
invitations to write for a political magazine in Germany (Jungle World)
and then by invitations to submit to Critical Asian Studies and Javnost:
The Public. The results were: “A City and a SAR On Fire” (52.1 (2020):
1–17) and “A Sound and Fury Signifying Mediatisation” (27.2 (2020):
200–209), respectively. While I do not draw on these essays here, I thank
the editors and reviewers there for the opportunity and for prompting my
further work on 2019 and its meanings from an Asian/China studies as
well as cultural/media studies perspective.
Working with Palgrave and commissioning editor Jacob Dreyer for a
second monograph has been a pleasure. I would like to thank as well two
anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticisms of the proposal and
first drafts.
I happily thank some genuine colleagues who have helped keep things
humane and professional during these tumultuous times. Thanks espe-
cially to Song Geng, John Carroll, Ci Jiwei, and David Pomfret. I also
thank several, anonymous supporters in the School of Humanities as
well as outside reviewers of my various files, with apologies that my/our
employer does not honour their recommendations or its own professional
obligations to them either.
Allen Chun, Yan Hairong, Cui Zhiyuan, Daniel Bell, Nurry Vittachi,
Zhao Yuezhi, Lin Chun, Barry Sautman, Wang Zhengxu, Ray Jiang, Pan
Lu, Zairong Xiang, the Lai crew, Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Liu Shih-Ding,
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Tugrul Keskin, Greg Mahoney, Ernest Leung, Jay Schutte, Wang Dan,
Jon Solomon, and others based in Hong Kong either offered direct feed-
back on drafts and ideas, or just as importantly, said or did other things to
help me remind myself I am not wrong to read HK and 2019 against the
grain. I would also like to thank Lui Tai Lok in particular for his work,
which has helped me think through the question of the Basic Law and
the handover process/problem. Of course all of the usual caveats apply,
and none of these good folks are responsible for anything I say in this
book. (Neither is Xi Jinping.)
Thanks also to all those other friends and students, many of them
having left the SAR already, who shared the past several years with
me. Shout out to Team No Calves as well, who kept picking up heavy
things and putting them down.
∗ ∗ ∗
This, my third monograph was even more of a challenge to write than
the first two. First this had to do with the genuine challenges—emotional
and intellectual—that the events of 2019 entailed. To call it trauma would
be too much (in my own case anyway). But these were not easy months to
live through, due as much to witnessing others suffering as from my own
uneasiness. From July onwards there was a painful, inescapable awareness
that Hong Kong had changed forever. One did not know how, but it did
not seem good. In the event it came in the form of the national security
law in June 2020. And of course the many changes since, not least under
the global pandemic. And yet, from the standpoint of Spring 2022, and
despite the mishandling of the Omicron wave of the virus, it is clear that
the new law and new era does not mark the end of Hong Kong. But it is
certainly the end of Hong Kong as some “democrats” and “autonomists”
wanted it to be. This is admittedly a lot of people, whether “lot” indicates
a substantial minority or a bona fide majority. Whether this will be better
or worse depends right now on who you ask. We shall see.
The next challenges were to academic life and family-life after Covid-
19 and the nearly two-year long school-closures (aka online learning) in
particular. Hong Kong attempted to micro-manage the virus (still better
than the ‘let it rip’ approach), a process that ended in abject failure with
the onset of Omicron and the lack of vaccination efforts and of test-and-
trace capabilities. Given the legacies of political colonialism in Hong Kong
as well as its anti-state or “neo-liberal” ethos, this failure in governance
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi
came as no surprise, even if it was difficult to live through. But having
weathered that, it seems now to be back on track and moving forward
with that second handover. We shall see. What made the past few years
liveable was my family above all, and the unstinting goodness and energy
and love from two kids in particular. Ollie was indispensable and made
the whole pack hang together. My wife Vicky Lo is the strongest and the
wisest person I know, and I dedicate this book to her.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 In the Event: The Politics and Contexts of the 2019
Anti-ELAB Protests 9
From the Umbrella to the Fishball ‘Revolutions’ 16
From a City-State to a SAR on Fire: The 2019 Anti-ELAB
and Its Aftermath 25
Policing the Crisis? 36
Colour Revolution and Quasi-Imperialism: Media
and Money 41
3 Basic Law, Basic Problems: Autonomy and Identity 57
One System: Everything That Rises Must Converge 61
Autonomy and Its Discontents 69
Identity and Its Discontents 77
4 Re-Colonization or De-Colonization? 97
Towards Economic De-Colonization? 99
Politics Not in Command: Political De-Colonization? 108
Politics of Knowledge (Brief Reprise) 117
Can the Parties Continue? Whither Participation? 122
5 Coda: The Search for State Capacity After Covid
and Zero-Covid 141
On the State, During and After Colonialism 142
xiii