Research Paper Final - A Struggle in Integration, Defense of the “Hongkonger” Identity

Despite almost 20 years of integration, Hong Kong has faced extensive tensions with Mainland China in the fight to define and defend the identity of the “Hongkonger.” In the midst of demonstrations beginning after 2010, Hong Kong has been emerging more and more as a sovereign entity demanding the respect towards the language, culture, politics, and resources of its territory. Since 1997, the Chinese government has been a growing influence in more than just politics. Reunion under Mainland China’s sovereignty has caused pressure in all sectors of Hong Kong’s society and a rise in protests over political sovereignty, linguistic rights, and resource allocation. The relationship between Hong Kong and Mainland China thus grow more complex as the movement of protests progresses.

Before the motives and origins of the protests can be understood, it is first necessary to examine the foundations of Hong Kong and how it transitioned from an barren territory on the southern coast of China to one of the world’s most developed economic centers in Asia. In many ways, “Hong Kong has been China’s most critical link to the rest of the world since the Silk Road and the Mongols” (Carroll 3). Hong Kong’s transformation was warranted in great part due to the transition from being an undeveloped Chinese island, to developing under British rule as a colony. Situated in the Guangdong province of China, Hong Kong was practically unsettle-able before Britain’s occupation in 1841. It was described as an unlikely site for any settlement and was criticized as a barren island (Cameron 27-28).

By the late 1700s, trade between Britain and China was unbalanced, mostly leaning towards China’s advantage as Britain was struggling to provide silver in exchange for Chinese silks and teas. However, opium was abundant in Britain. It was imported from British India and commonly used for pain alleviation. Thus, to balance out the favor of trade, Britain exporting opium into China and thus began the lucrative drug trade. By the end of the 18^th century, opium was banned by the ruling Qing state but nonetheless the drug continued to enter China as a contraband trade. The effects on Chinese society were destructive illustrated by the fact that “nine persons out of 10 were opium addicts” in Hong Kong’s neighboring provinces of Fujian and Guangdong (Cameron). These provinces were representative of the reach of Britain’s influence which was mostly based near the ports of Hong Kong. Efforts to end the opium trade caused political tensions between the two factions and the First Opium War broke out in 1839. China lost to great force of warships and was forced to comply with demands in negations. The British claimed sovereignty over the Hong Kong island in 1841, seeing it as a potential investment for reopening trade in the region. “…Hong Kong was an anomaly of a colony in that its purpose was not to be colonized so much as to be used for diplomatic, military, and commercial purposes” (Cameron 41). In 1842, the Treaty of Nanjing was signed, ending the First Opium War. The ratification of the treaty the next year opened many Chinese ports open to foreign trade and residence and ceded the island of Hong Kong to Britain (Cameron 30). Although Hong Kong is technically only a small island of about 11 miles across, referring to “Hong Kong” today includes the surrounding islands and New Territories. Those territories were acquired after 1860 with the end of the Second Opium War. While China remained isolated to its own laws, Hong Kong was exposed to British sovereignty. British law became the norm of the colony. British colonists in the region were charged under British law for offenses in China. This marked the launch of British control over the governing of Hong Kong. Historian Cameron argues that at this point, China began to disregard the colony. (32) The lack of Chinese control would launch Hong Kong into its development as an individual entity following a different pathway than Mainland China. During the time of colonization under Britain, Hong Kong went under a massive transition as the British invested in the infrastructure of Hong Kong and its economic development.

After over a century of British rule, the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed in December of 1984 and instituted that Hong Kong and its surrounding territories would be returned to Mainland China by 1997 (Li). The agreement had anticipated the drastic changed that would come with the integration of Hong Kong back with the Mainland. To address this, The Sino-British joint Declaration planned in advanced and warranted a 50-year adjustment period for Hongkongers. Thus, Hong Kong would remain a sovereign Special Administrative Region (SAR) until 2047 (Li 43). This arrangement is known as the “One country two systems” policy under Chinese president Deng XiaoPing. Li argues that Hong Kong was a unique colony of Britain’s that, upon decolonizing, had built up a strong, educated working class and an economy whose figures excelled those of any other decolonizing colony.

Protest culture had a unique development in Hong Kong that began prior to the reunion with the Mainland. During the sovereign isolation of Hong Kong from China, in addition to cultivating a booming economy, the colony began developing a unique identity.

The late 1980’s posed radical changes in China’s protest culture. With the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, Mainland China’s interaction with the West increased as diplomatic and trade relations developed. By the 1980’s, many Chinese people had been exposed to Western ideologies and knowledge of comparatively better standards of living in democratic countries. Political activism began to build, especially among university students, and Chinese citizens grew more passionate about bringing democracy to China. In the summer of 1989, demonstrators gathered at Tiananmen Square in Beijing to advocate for a transition to democracy (Erbaugh & Kraus). The student-led occupation was led by thousands of supporters and news of the events inspired other regions of China to act as well. The Tiananmen Protest, however, was intercepted as the Chinese government sent in troops which opened fire on any protesters in their way. The event became known as the Tiananmen Massacre and suppressed democratic movements in Beijing and surrounding provinces. However, many of the demonstrations outside of Beijing were not as broadly subdued due to the small natures of the protests. Mary Erbaugh’s and Richard Kraus’ The Pro-Democracy Protest in China: Reports from the Provinces reports the pro-democratic protest on goings in the province of Fujian, a neighboring province of Guangdong, and argue that like Guangdong, economic developments were so independent in these southern regions that dependence on the capital of Beijing was not as strong as provinces nearer the political base. This goes to support that Guangdong and surrounding areas were truly forming individuality and uniqueness even back to the 1989 Democratic Movement and thus, protest nature in these southern provinces near Hong Kong was still thriving. This led for Hong Kong to further develop as an individual region with a protest spirit more active than regions suppressed by Chinese government authority. These smaller protests outside of Beijing have been less studied because of the small scale of the movements.  The small nature was due to the fact that Colonial Hong Kong’s protest culture was mostly inactive due to a strong Confucianistic culture (Lam). Confucianism is an ideology that promotes a simplistic way of life and discourages civil disobedience.  According to Li, the influences of Confucianism led to the Chinese people of the Guangdong region and Hong Kong to become “submissive to authority” and “politically apathetic” (24). Although protest culture in Hong Kong was live, the idea of Confucianistic culture attributed to the small-scale demonstrations during the colonial period. However, by the time of the “post-hand-over-period,” Hong Kong was faced with signs of alienation and incongruence between political culture and institutions of the Mainland (Lam). This point noted the initiation of Hong Kong protests over integration which were strongly fueled by the handover of colony back to the Mainland and have given rise to demonstrations protesting these issues.

Since the integration of Hong Kong back to Mainland China in 1997, there have been many protests in the form of small, physical demonstrations in public spaces within Hong Kong. These demonstrations can be separated into three main categories: linguistics, resource allocation, and political. Although the motives and themes for these protests differ, they all share similarities outlined by Perry’s theory of protest rhetoric in China. The term “Confucian moralism,” in the context of protest described by Perry, is best illustrated by protestors in China sacrificing “their very lives for their beliefs” (316). Such demonstration was seen in the Tiananmen protests for democracy of 1989 where ‘by fasting, [protestors] hoped to contrast the moral righteousness of their behavior with that of the corrupt and despotic government against which they protested’ (316). It is by this structure, in which workers and students came together that future protests have been modeled after. “In their style of remonstrance (presenting petitions and banners and demanding dialogue with the authorities), their search of political patrons... and above all their stress on moralism... the students evinced a brand of political behavior and belief replete with the stigmata of the imperial past (324). In other words, there could not have been any other way for the rhetoric of this protest to form. It was inevitable due to the historical context and influence that these three objects were necessary to implement their demonstrations. This outlines the future methods of protest demonstrations following the 1989 events. For example, directly after in 1990, protest over direct elections for the presidency of the Republic of China “borrowed directly form the repertoire of the Tiananmen Uprising: students occupied the central political square in Taipei where they undertook a hunger strike, donned headbands…” (324). This was a demonstration that these methods were to mimicked and utilized in demonstrations to come. According to Perry, the modern protest rhetoric of China is characterized by dramatic expression inspired by 40 years of socialism (326). The 1989 demonstration was characterized as “a morality play done in Beijing opera style” per David Strand (317). As such, the nature of protests following this model are spectacular in appearance: physical presence, signs, slogans, and symbols. This is useful in explaining why demonstrations protecting the Cantonese Language in Hong Kong and Guangzhou have mostly been in-person, physical demonstrations with people gathering in the manner of a spectacle to direct a message.

Although the individual themes of the demonstrations vary, they all lead a common mode of rhetoric the use of physical occupations to petition and demonstrate. In his 2000 edition of Polite Politics, Kwok-leung Ho asserts that political participation in the form of protest in Hong Kong have been organized by three major activities: group meetings, mass meetings, and petitions and demonstrations since before the decolonization period. These methods are used most primarily in the following protest examples and will encompass most of the styles of remonstrance in the modern-day defense of the Hongkonger identity.

As tensions between the People’s Republic of China and the Special Administrative Region grew with increased exposure to one another, linguistic tensions and criticisms developed rapidly after the establishment of Mandarin as the primary lingua franca of China.

Throughout China’s history, select regions developed unique cultures which included the cultivation of regional customs and languages. These variations of the Chinese language developed into dialects and subdialects over time placing China into a “heterogeneous linguistic context.” (Gao) Throughout Chinese history, beginning with imperial China, emperors made many attempts to unify the Chinese language in both spoken and written forms to improve communication between the provinces and to form a national identity. In 1956, the government of the People’s Republic of China declared Putonghua (literally meaning “the common language”) the standard spoken Chinese in Mainland China. This act, made mandatory for the use of the Putonghua, a form of Chinese based on the Beijing dialect, and standardized Chinese characters to be used in school, media, and government settings across Greater China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong) (Gao). This struck conflict once Hong Kong rejoined the Mainland as the language law was applied to all public sectors within the former colony.

Cantonese has had a significant influence on cultural products such as movies, pop music, magazines, and literature which has made its way into mainstream popularity across non-Cantonese-speaking communities (Gao). Vernacular Cantonese has even come to develop its own written form, adding, modifying, or reviving Chinese characters to encompass the grammar and usage of spoken Cantonese.  As such, Cantonese has grown to represent the underlying culture and, ultimately, identity of the Hongkonger.

In a linguistic study conducted by Xuesong Gao, internet posts on chat forums such as protester blogs of Chinese citizens defending the Cantonese language were analyzed based on Cantonese speakers’ attitudes toward Cantonese and Putonghua. The results revealed that Cantonese speakers valued the linguistic ties of Cantonese to ancient poems. From a linguistic standpoint, Putonghua stems from nomadic influences that entered beginning in the 13^th century during the Yuan Dynasty. However, Cantonese “pronunciation and lexis can be traced to the dynasties of Sui and Tang in the 7^th Century” (Gao). A similar study of language attitude conducted by Andrew D. Wong concluded that Hongkongers associate Cantonese as being closer to the origins of the Chinese language because of the order roots of the Cantonese lexis. This is especially vivid in comparisons that Hongkongers made of Tang dynasty poetry read in both Putonghua and Cantonese. The biggest difference in the two dialects, aside from pronunciation, is the different number of tones. Chinese is a tonal language, meaning pitch and pronunciation together affect the meaning of the spoken word. Cantonese has 9 tones: 3 upper, 3 lower, and 3 entering, while Putonghua merely has 4: a high, a rising, a falling-rising, and a falling (Wong). According to Wong, this difference in tonality is one of the biggest difference in reading Tang Dynasty poetry. The closer Tang roots of Cantonese allow for better sound, rhythm, and clarity of Tang poetry. “Tang Poems sound much better when read in Cantonese than in Putonghua” (Wong).

Overall, Wong’s study concluded that Hongkongers view Putonghua as an “inauthentic” standard of Chinese due to external influences that branched the language away from Tang Dynasty Chinese.  As such, many Hongkongers view Cantonese as a crucial link to their own history and culture.

Aside from Cantonese and Putonghua, however, Hongkong also has intervention from the colonial language, English. After Hong Kong’s decolonization, English remained an important language in international affairs such as diplomacy, globalization, and trade. A language attitude study conducted by Mee Ling Lai in 2005 revealed that Hongkongers viewed English as an instrumental language and many favored a dual identity. However, further surveys conducted in 2014 revealed that “English was the least valued language among the three” (Funtwe and Zhao). The study was a follow up to Lai’s survey in 2005 and used a similar survey methods and questions based on those used in the 2005 study. The updated study indicated that Hongkongers acknowledged Putonghua as necessary to career advancement outside of Guangdong Province, however, viewed it less important in Hong Kong culture, placing Cantonese as the leading language with a personal connection to their identity. Thus, integration with Mainland China and obligation to comply with the primacy of Putonghua has been seen as a threat to the prevalence of Cantonese and thus, the Hongkonger identity.

Under China’s National Language Law, Hong Kong was placed into a system of “biliteracy and trilingualism,” referring to “the use of standard English and Chinese as the written languages; and English, Cantonese and Putonghua as the spoken varieties.” (Lai 250) Under this system, media outlets in Hong Kong such as television channels, were required to receive approval for the use of Cantonese. With such restriction in place already, it was no shock that protesters gathered to demonstrate against a proposal by the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) to switch completely from Cantonese to Putonghua on local television channels. This proposal caused the formation of the Protecting Cantonese Movement which began demonstrations in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, in July 2010.  The threat of losing Cantonese in the media caused widespread panic and fervent opposition as it would undermine the cultural value it holds in the community.

The fight to protect Cantonese as Hong Kong’s and Guangdong Province’s lingua franca extended to even the smallest threats in media outlets. Earlier in 2016, it had become apparent that in the upcoming release of Pokémon Sun & Moon, Nintendo was dropping the production of the Cantonese versions of the game. In the past, Nintendo had used Cantonese transliterations for the character names, however, with the upcoming release, it was stated that this would not be the case. The game would now be standardized with Mandarin pronunciations which alters names of characters like Pikachu drastically. The former Cantonese style was pronounced Béikāchīu (比卡超) while the Mandarin sounding as Píkǎqiū (皮卡丘), the difference mainly lying in the ending vowel; the Cantonese sounds a “u” sound while the Mandarin sounds a “yo” sound ("List of Chinese Pokémon Names”). Nintendo’s action caused a demonstration of dozens of protesters appearing in front of the Japanese Consulate in Hong Kong presenting 6,000 signatures against the name changing move (Rath).

In the case of the Pokémon demonstrators, the protest acts as an important emphasis that Cantonese is in fact a cultural artifact of Hong Kong. This protest, like the demonstrations against Professor Qingdong, expressed outrage and aggression against cultural threats that put down the use of Cantonese, but none-the-less remained peaceful in its execution. The rhetoric of this protest demonstration was primarily seen in the physical occupation of public space targeting the Japanese Consulate. This immediately visible act shows that there is indeed a cause worth arguing in something so easily overlooked by many people as blatant fanaticism. The delivery of the 6,000 signatures emphasized this and as part of the rhetoric, was used to amplify the discontent that Cantonese Speakers faced when recognizing the lack of cultural sensitivity in Nintendo’s action.

The events of the protests on linguistic rights have been demonstrated in various mediums including backlash to a viral video spreading across the internet. The video captured a native Hongkonger in the MTR train car telling the daughter of a Mainland mother not to eat on the train. Eating on the MTR train system is prohibited (“MTR By-Laws”). The language this man used however, was Cantonese. This was the motivation for professor, talk show host, and academic Kong Qingdong to responded to the video on national Chinese television. His response was that when there is a difference in dialect between two people, both should speak Mandarin; those who refuse are bastards (“Mandarin Chinese Called Cantonese Bastards And Dogs”). This was faced with widespread criticism over the internet and was followed by protesters occupying the streets of Hong Kong.

Peking University’s Professor Kong Qingdong’s assault on Hongkongers calling them “bastards and dogs” resulted in his own public ridicule. Protesters occupied the front of China’s Central Government Liaison Office in Hong Kong’s Western district holding signs and posters. One of the first series of images had the face of Professor Qingdong photoshopped onto the body and figure of a bulldog with the word “Bastard” above the lazy-eyes, droopy cheeked face. Directly next to the printed poster, a protester held an iPhone horizontally with a black background and white Chinese text translated to “If Hongkongese are dogs, then respectful Professor Kong should be euthanized!” (See fig. 1). The image poses two major purposes. The first is to pose a counterattack against the negative comments of the Professor. Despite the demonstrations being peaceful occupations of public spaces, the crude and animalistic portrayal and death wish of the Professor acts as the aggression in this type of protest. The inherent violence of the image is stemmed from the dehumanization of the figure and speaks to the pathos of the protesters. It brings out the anger and rage of Hongkongers who were reached by the comments and exerts that by placing the Professor in their shoes. Other demonstrators did this as well by displaying toy dogs and rolled up banners used to beat this caricature of Professor Qingdong, literally exerting rage on the professor through this indirect representation (see fig. 2).

Although the image is negative in its aggressive nature, it inconspicuously calls for unity by relating Mandarin-speaking Mainlanders to Cantonese-speaking Hongkongers. What the image used by demonstrators does is it confronts Professor Qingdong out on his own hypocrisy. Professor Qingdong instantly separated himself from people of Hong Kong by degrading their status based on their use of Cantonese. He placed Hongkongers as inferior to him and Mandarin speakers creating an uneven plane between the two groups. By portraying Professor Qingdong as a dog and a bastard in the image, it essentially pulls him back to the level of the Hongkongers. As the statements suggests, if Professor Qingdong accuses Hongkongers of being dogs, then he has inadvertently called himself one as well. The image expresses the rage of the Hongkongers as a primary goal, but secondarily and more importantly expresses the underlying message that Mainlanders and Hongkongers are united as one Chinese people. If one group are dogs and bastards, the other is as well.

Alongside cultural oppression, Hong Kong had faced a longstanding issue of resource allocation problems since the integration with Mainland China had occurred. Already, Hong Kong is one of the most dense city districts in the world with little land to create new buildings and a large population of over 7 million (Collins). Thus, immigration and large scale tourism have posed issues to allocating resources including food, water, shelter, and most importantly space. Since the beginning of the millennium, tourism in Hong Kong has soared tremendously. In 2011, the number of Chinese tourists “was the equivalent of four times the entire population of Hong Kong” (Garrett). Although this gave stimulation to the tourism industry which includes revenue made from souvenirs, amusement venue ticket sales, and economic flow, this posed other issues which included pushing the limits of Hong Kong’s infrastructural resources. This gave rise to demonstrations against Mainland drivers and Mainland mothers coming to Hong Kong to give birth to gain their future children the right to reside in the Special Administrative Region (Garrett). These protests were quite similar to the protests over linguistic rights including physical presence in public spaces and the utilization of signs and posters to portray the rhetoric. Both demonstrations arose simultaneously as one grouped movement in Victoria Park in February of 2012.

 In the case of the anti-Mainland driver demonstrations, Hongkongers held signs depicting a car with the Chinese flag attached encircled in a crossed prohibited sign seen on most no smoking posters. The text on the sign contained both Chinese and English, the latter written as “Mainland cars coming. Life at risk!” and “Stop cross-border driving into HK” (see fig. 3). The first statement mentioning life at risk was deliberate based on an event that occurred October 2011 in a Chinese city involving a toddler who was run over by a Chinese driver “who simply paused, and then continued to drive over her a second time before leaving the scene (Garrett). This poster’s most important artifact is the ethos that is speaks to. According to the intent of the message, the posters portray that allowing “Mainland cars” into the SAR would be an irresponsible and an unethical decision as it could potentially bring dangerous and careless drivers. The dangerous attitude towards Mainland drivers is emphasized by the encroaching tone of the phrase “Mainland cars coming.” The phrase evokes panic by mimicking a sense of invasion likely to be used in a setting of war such as “missiles coming” or “soldiers coming.” The evoked emotions are not completely logical since it would be a fallacy in argument to assume that all Mainland drivers are dangerous, however, this phrase is deliberate and it plays on the pathos, especially fear, of citizens concerned over the safety of children and Hongkongers who are passionate against Mainlanders due to rising tensions between the two systems.

The second of the few variations of the anti-Mainland driver posters shows an image of a crowded Hong Kong street with a wide mass of pedestrians encroaching the boarder of the traffic filled road (see fig. 4). Above the image, two arrows face each other in opposite directions towards the middle. In between them a stop sign with a car drawn in the middle. On the left side the sign reads “More cars?” the right, “More space?” (both sides in English below the arrow and in Chinese above it) (Garrett). This poster speaks to the limitations of Hong Kong’s resources in space that more cars would mean a greater need for pedestrian space. This is portrayed as an unachievable feat with the display of the image in the center. The street in the photo is so packed that it is seemingly possible for a pedestrian to be hit from a vehicle in the right-most or left-most lane. As such, this particular poster utilizes logos as the primary driver of its message appealing to the idea that it would be illogical to allow more cars into the SAR due to the state of infrastructural restrains in the current time. Doing so would only exacerbate the current infrastructural issues that haven’t yet been solved with the densely populated city.

A third variation of the anti-Mainland car protest acts a bit as an outlier to the rhetoric theory of Perry. A third display featured an object in place of posters. Hongkongers gathered around an effigy of a mainland car, destroying it by kicking and smashing at it until the object was in pieces in the center of the public square outside the Hong Kong SAR Government and Legislative Council Plaza (see fig. 5). This demonstration again plays on the ethos and pathos of the citizens and not very much on logos. The demonstration is rage driven showing full-fledged physical aggression against a representation of a Mainland driver and ultimate destruction of the object. The ethos lies in the motive for the display which, again, includes notions of unethicality of allowing Mainland cars into the SAR which may potentially bring harmful and careless drivers alongside. The pathos stems in the enormous stream of angry emotions promoted by building such an object as an effigy. Although the consequences of exerting aggregations against an effigy do not carry the same end result if the object were real, the emotional result behind the physical actions are legitimate. This breaks Perry’s theory of how protests following the 1989 democratic protests operated in that this particular display of events did not include an aspect of moralism. The building of an effigy is largely immoral as it fuels anger and tensions and further aggravates the dissidents who place emotion at the very top of the motivational list. This event, however, is effective in that it shows a degree of severity in the issue to the point that people are truly concerned and that the allocation of resources such as pedestrian walk ways and roads is truly under threat with growing integration.

Occurring during the same time as the Anti-Mainland drivers protests, women including mothers and those expecting occupied hospital grounds in protest of the lack of resources for Hongkongers in local hospitals. According to NTDTV, 4 out of 10 births were from Mainland Chinese Mothers around 2011. This led to a decrease in allocation of hospital beds and a decrease in the healthcare quality. Daniel Garrett’s photograph of the protest shows a young boy holding up an anti-Mainland mothers poster (see fig.6). Interviews from mothers revealed that they experienced birth without the aid of medical professionals due to a lack of resources (NTDTV). The rhetoric of this protest is strong in all three: pathos, logos, and ethos. Protestors asserted the logic that Hong Kong is becoming limited in its recourses to provide for native Hongkongers with such a great influx of foreign mothers giving birth in local hospitals. The dense nature of the SAR and lack of new space for new infrastructure places limits on the access to healthcare simply by physical space. In addition to that, the large number of tourists and visitors birthing for the motive of gaining special privileges in the SAR is unethical and immoral. The appearance of pregnant women at the demonstration emphasized the unethicality of this uneven resource issue. Women brought their children to the protest in order to emphasize the pathos aspect of the message that this issue not only effects the women, but the children and consequently the entire family. As moralistic culture holders, Hongkongers hold family values high and the appearance of families in the demonstrations shows that the rhetoric truly appeals to the pathos of the communities of Hong Kong. 

Hong Kong began cultivating its unique identity from its very foundation beginning with Britain’s colonization of the territory. Hong Kong’s separation from Mainland China allowed for not only a developed infrastructure and growing economy under British rule, but also the development of a unique protest environment and public sphere in which protest spirit began to grow during the democratic movements in the 80s and was unleased with the reunion with Mainland China. The decolonization of Hong Kong began the propagation of long lasting integration clash as Hongkongese culture was put under threat by Chinese laws. The result was united protest by Hongkongers to defend their linguistic rights, resources, and political environments. In many ways, Hong Kong protests aggravate Mainlander and Hongkongers sentiment. Although most protests have been non-violent demonstrations, the last few years have seen a turn to more gross aggression such as the grueling characterization of professor Kong Qingdong as a mutt and the destruction of the Mainland car effigy. Such demonstrations have shown a move away from Moral Confucianism, a less restrained nature of protest and discontent. These demonstrations have also shown a decrease in ethics. On one hand, demonstrations against Mainland mothers giving birth in Hong Kong is rational due to the limitations of recourse. On the other hand, denying the same rights to members of Mainland China is unethical. Obstructions to proper health care in situations as delicate as delivering a baby is potentially harmful to the carrying mother and with the lack of medical attention could result in severe birth complications, a painful deliver, and even long-term health risks. However, it is understandable that this issue is being protested with such a high emotional charge as Hong Kong mothers are experiencing the very same thing. The high population density and limited hospital resources may eventually result in a more selective process of how many people come into Hong Kong. 

Overall, the increased force with which Hongkongers resist integration with Mainland China and react to the slightest threat to Cantonese-based culture shows a moving away from Moral Confucianism. Moral Confucianism has been criticized by many intellectuals as causing Chinese protests to be weak and unheard and thus, this change may be signaling a rise in power of Hong Kong as an individual entity. With this trajectory, Hong Kong may be reaching for independence from the People’s Republic of China in the near future in order to protect and propagate its culture and identity as a diverse hub formed by the East and West.  

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