The Creation of a Patriotic Class in China's Hong Kong: Trials, Tribulations, and Tears

In the 1980s China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping dictated that only 'Patriots' could rule Hong Kong. In the years since then, this fundamental principle of the 'One Country, Two Systems' policy has often been dismissed, forgotten, ignored, maligned, or overlooked in the sometimes overzealous and often frenzied discussions in the West about 'Hong Kong's democracy.' Yet, through repeated crises and elections in Hong Kong, the issue of patriotism and who are patriotic, and who are not, has been a recurrent and controversial theme. Likewise, mainland officials and local loyalists have often decried the lack of patriotism in the SAR; President Hu Jintao even called upon the Hong Kong SAR Government to create a new generation of Hongkongers who would love their country. And, to the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) dismay, accusations or allegations of being an underground CCP member in Hong Kong remain a scarlet letter that not even the most prominent, or elite 'red Hongkonger,' seem to be willing to bear politically - at the moment. Even mainland university students standing in student elections in some Hong Kong's universities have suffered recent communist baiting from their local classmates. Fifteen years after the establishment of the Hong Kong SAR and return to Chinese sovereignty, it is clear that though only the patriotic class can rule Hong Kong, they still cannot show their real colors. Now, as the earliest point that universal suffrage can be introduced to select Hong Kong's 'leader' - the Chief Executive - the final touches on just who can represent the territory, and how much electoral choice and democracy will Hongkongers materially have is about to be decided. However, despite all the talk of suffrage, there is little reason to believe that Beijing will relinquish its sovereign right to anoint the patriots who administer the SAR. This paper proposes to examine the phenomena of creating a ruling patriotic class in Hong Kong, the existing animosity and moral panic towards suspected underground CCP members, and the implications for how representative governance overseen by patriots will proceed in Hong Kong. The likely impact of the accession of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, the current head of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, to the presidency of China poses an excellent time consider how these issues may be handled.