This sounds uncomfortably close to Imperial Japan's concept of "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (大東亜共栄圏)", i.e., Asians should unite together and defend themselves against Western aggressors. Under some Asian banner, of course.
Oppression does not become more tolerable just because it's inflicted by "the same people".
Agreed, but it shouldn't be less tolerable either, which is more of the point.
During the early years of colonization there was a ton of protests and fighting, but they were brutally suppressed by the British.
After getting rid of early activists and over 70+ years later, the quality of life improved so there were less and less complaints.
> (If you add in a racial dimension, where the Hong Kong people are Asians willing to submit to "whites" while fighting back against other Asians, adds to that disdain).
I definitely agree there is a major dose of postcolonial mentality going on among the middle-class Hongkongers.
After the rich elite either moved to the West or became chummy with China, the middle class basically moved into the second tier of the "racial hierarchy (whites & hapas > rich Hongkongers > everyone else)"
In my opinion, this seems to be more of a class struggle. I see a lot of blue collar Hongkongers being friends with Mainland Chinese. And I see a lot of intermarriage among them as well. Same as when I visited Taiwan.
I think just like British colonization took 70+ years, after China has held onto Hong Kong long enough, things will change.
Why am I not surprised.
> Why am I not surprised.
Because HN does a good job allowing active debate on a complex subject?
The HK Chinese were however much better off at the time under British rule than the mainland Chinese were under China's. China was kind of a mess at the time.
Perhaps materially, but on principle I don't think anyone would want to be considered second-class.
The objective fact is that Hong Kong now enjoys greater electoral freedom after severance from British colonial rule and returning to Chinese sovereignty. Yet the cacophony coming out of western media are actively encouraging the repainting of an otherwise undeniable fact as somehow controversial.
And then you have these nativist protestors who knowingly break the laws of the jurisdiction in a "I dare you to arrest me" fashion. It hit the peak of hypocrisy when they went to Washington to implore Donald Trump to assist them in instilling democracy in Hong Kong.
The Chinese had a direct hand in making that so: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/th...
EDIT: I asked this half rhetorically. Although I don't have citations to back it up, my impression is that natives who were colonial subjects didn't generally fare well. You may be able to argue minutae.
EDIT 2: you ask a fair question, but I couldn't help but be reminded of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIvYWUVB1Ig :)
As well, "British subjects" in a colony is always a controversial and touchy subject because you have both cases of how theyre treated depending on how they were percieved by the UK. There was a reason why USA started a revolution and India wanted to be independent under Gandhi which again ties with the idea that colonial subjects are usually exploited and not heard from.
What rights do those the British try to "subjugate" in the six counties of north Ireland have? Diplock courts, the Special Powers act, shoot-to-kill, military/intelligence collusion with loyalist death squads etc.
And even up till the 1980s, there was an undertone of white privilege, especially in Central (the business district).
There is a commonly held belief (which I haven't researched and thus don't know if true or not) that they didn't make nearly as much of a ruckus when they were under British colonial rule, when they were de facto second-class citizens. As such, the independence/pro-democracy movement is viewed as a Western-backed attempt to destabilize China, with supporters (generalized to the whole people of Hong Kong, depending on how many of them you believe support the movement) viewed as submissives to the West. (If you add in a racial dimension, where the Hong Kong people are Asians willing to submit to "whites" while fighting back against other Asians, adds to that disdain).
Any attempts to "help", as some on this thread have suggested, is only going to help affirm this belief and harden the mainland Chinese stance against Hong Kong.