In his article “Six buckets of cold water poured on our fellow Hong Kongers abroad” published the other day, Dr Joseph Lian talked about the many limitations facing overseas Hong Kongers since the passing of the National Security Law in Hong Kong. The article has generated a lot of discussions. Since a young age, many of us have admired Dr Lian for his worldly views. But from the perspective of international relations, several points he made in the article seem debatable.

The “six buckets of water” in Dr Lian’s words can be divided into three parts. First, overseas Hong Kongers do not understand the art of going into exile and are incapable of motivating other countries to help Hong Kongers without resorting to moral arguments. In particular, they easily get stuck now that there is a red line imposed by the national security law. Second, exile groups often lose their substance and their leaders can get corrupt easily (think pro-democracy Chinese dissidents who have fled China). Besides, they are unable to adapt to life abroad. Third, Hong Kongers are not like the Jews, who have a long history of worshipping a religion and age-old customs. The Hong Kong cultural identity probably will not last for more than one generation if people move abroad.

To be sure, Dr Lian’s arguments do reflect one side of reality, but in light of the following six factors, they do not represent reality in its entirety.

(1) The so-called “overseas wing” is not a narrowly defined political concept. If maintaining the Hong Kong identity and waiting for the right opportunity to come are a shared vision of Hong Kongers abroad, we are talking about a movement involving all Hong Kong people and with a life of its own. This transcends the importance of leaders as underscored by Dr Lian.

(2) The six bucket of waters were meant to pour on Hong Kongers who have gone into exile. But then “exiles”, “diasporas” and “migrants” are three different concepts, and they are not mutually exclusive. In the foreseeable future, the majority of overseas Hong Kongers will be diasporas who are willing to integrate in their host countries and at the same time see Hong Kong as their hometown. Throughout history in the East and the West, there have been a lot of successful, sustainable cases of this kind.

(3) Many issues cited in the article are related to the “big stage syndrome”, the belief that social movements have to be led by established organizations. But in recent years, Hong Kongers have managed to overcome the syndrome.

(4) In the internet era, many old norms related to cultural identities and geographical locations have been broken. Changes that have taken place in a given year are equivalent to changes experienced in the space of 10 years in the pre-digital age.

(5) International relations have today come to the biggest turning point since 1945. The rise of China and the oppression experienced by Hong Kongers are inevitably at odds with the civilized world. They are a kind of clash of civilizations. Hong Kong lies on the fault line of major conflicts and, with the technology revolution, we are heading to an unknown, new world.

(6) No matter how the new world will be, two different values and two organizational models will coexist. If China represents a top-down power structure, things will eventually go to the extreme and then be reversed. The other model, a bottom-up one, will feature non-state actors and will eventually blossom.

In view of all of the above, the concerns raised by Dr Lian in his article are objective facts, and it is not impossible to overcome them.

For one thing, while Hong Kong people cannot be compared to the Jews, it does not mean there is no such thing as a unique Hong Kong identity. In fact, even the Jewish identity has not been maintained solely by religion and customs. During the time when Zionism arose, rabbis (elites, stakeholders and established tradition leaders) were criticized for being passive and accepting reality in the name of defending religious doctrines. That resulted in a modernization movement aimed at building connections so as to achieve the critical mass effect. The Jewish leaders emphasized the importance of integrating in society in different places. Apart from religion and culture, resistance to foreign oppression and the need to promote domestic economic growth were key factors for maintaining the Jewish identity (following the Industrial Revolution, the business-minded Jews were aware of the importance of a more tightly knit community to protect labor rights). For diasporic communities to sustain, the command of leaders in exile is not necessary. Apart from the Jews, the Estonians, the Armenians, the Kurds and the Mormons all have their way to thrive. By the way, Estonia has a population of merely one million, and the total number of overseas Hong Kongers is more than that.

More importantly though, the Hong Kong identity has never been a black and white matter that has existed since time immemorial. It is composite in nature and is connected with the rest of the world. Otherwise, one cannot explain why there are these second or third-generation Hong Kongers abroad, some of whom don’t even speak Cantonese that well, who managed to reinforce the Hong Konger identity over the past year. They have even attracted foreigners to join the broadly defined Hong Kong community. Yet their parents are blue ribbons. With the internet, it is hard for the aforementioned cultural identity to disintegrate once it was born. Over time, a dual diasporic identity will come into being, and the values and interests of both sides are merged. Such is the biggest difference between the old and young generations of overseas Hong Kongers. (Actually there are a large number of mainland Chinese scholars specializing in diasporic identity. If what they do violates the National Security Law, the Office for Safeguarding National Security should clean the mess first.)

Second, overseas lobbying requires a specific body of knowledge and is an undertaking that costs a lot of money. Last year, Hong Kong people managed to create an international front on their own. Today, the front has been undermined by the National Security Law, and its effectiveness has passed the critical point of marginal effect. But even a medium-sized country that wants to build up a lobby group in the US also faces the same issues: lobbying is costly and successful lobbying calls for giving local officials and congressmen what they need. The same goes to a small bunch of Hong Kongers hailing from a broken special administrative region and who do not have any official recognition.

For this reason, as well as the fact that people calling for foreign countries to sanction Hong Kong are on the radar of the National Security Law, exploring other possible ties has become all the more necessary. For overseas governments, politicians, and those with vested interests, what incentives do they have for helping Hong Kongers safeguard their core values apart from idealism? The answer is simple: Hong Kong people have relatively abundant resources, the technology knowhow, talent, and the ability to adapt to life abroad. As a community, they constitute an offshore economy like the British Virgin Islands (BVI) at least, and a city at most. Such is the biggest incentive for Britain to expand the rights of BNO passport holders.

Perhaps local governments in Australia can consider the idea of an “Australian Hong Kong” in the sparsely populated west coast. And the Taiwanese government can turn existing offshore banking units into a virtual BVI by attracting special talents from Hong Kong, thus driving up local salaries. In these countries, there are already too many lobby groups involved in China policy. How to replicate Hong Kongers’ values so as to achieve win-win situations while maintaining the Hong Kong identity is a special subject that only Hong Kongers are experts in.

One should know that even when Sino-US relations were at their worst, there was still a window for both countries, and both sides sent their people to the other side. Hong Kong people need to be able to survive at all times. I know many overseas Hong Kongers and international students who maintain their Hong Konger identity and at the same time have joined local political parties, financial institutions or local governments. They combine two sets of values, interests and identities. Lobby groups and exiles are not on such a level.

Third, The mess of overseas Chinese pro-democracy organizations surely makes a perfect negative role model, but then overseas Hong Kongers are fundamentally different from members of these groups. The biggest assets of overseas Hong Kongers lie in their economic strength and international networks. They are not leaders who transplant China’s pro-democracy movement in foreign countries. Hong Kong lacks a single political leader whom everyone supports, and exiles destined to be involved in political work are naturally under a lot of restrictions and are being watched. But this does not mean overseas Hong Kongers are not united. In every place, there are already de facto leaders who do not need to keep a high profile. There are semi-open and semi-underground networks that cooperate and compete with each other without hurting the fundamentals. On the contrary, pro-democracy Chinese dissidents are rootless. The key, therefore, is to establish a structural fulcrum. One must not rely on a single source of income or work full time on the international front, or they will give people a negative impression of them.

Another fundamental difference between overseas Hong Kongers and their mainland counterparts abroad is that there have always been interactions between them and Hong Kongers in Hong Kong. Even if some opposition leaders are thrown behind bars, some years later they may leave the city. Although overseas Hong Kongers are unhappy with the “new Hong Kong”, some “yellow submarines” will return to Hong Kong for work. The bonds between the two types of Hong Kongers will not disappear just because of the National Security Law. At this point in time, Dr Lian’s arguments are certainly a good reminder. Yet it is also our shared responsibility to identify hope in reality, and recognize reality through hope, and then carve out a future path.

(Simon Shen, Associate Professor, the Faculty of Social Science of the Chinese University of Hong Kong)

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