HK’s Chinese citizens have duties aside from rights

When the “one country, two systems” (OCTS) policy was announced by Beijing in the early 1980s, the preponderant concerns were to secure Hong Kong residents’ support for China’s recovery of Hong Kong in 1997 as well as maintain their confidence in the future of the city. 

One of the momentous consequences stemming from these concerns is that the Basic Law of Hong Kong, which was promulgated in 1990, is long on the rights and privileges but short on the duties and obligations of Hong Kong residents. The Basic Law confers many fundamental rights to Hong Kong residents, who are also exempted from the “one-child policy” then still in force on the mainland, paying taxes to the central government, and rendering military service to the country. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has its court of final appeal and its currency, uncommon privileges a subnational unit enjoys. On the contrary, there is only one article in the Basic Law that bespeaks the duties of Hong Kong residents. Article 42 stipulates that “Hong Kong residents and other persons in Hong Kong shall have the obligation to abide by the laws in force in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.” An unexceptional obligation indeed!

Even though the Basic Law does not mention it, Beijing has all along made it explicit that Hong Kong residents must prevent Hong Kong from becoming a base of subversion against the socialist system of the mainland and the communist regime

It’s most telling that in the Chinese Constitution, the fundamental rights and obligations are those of the Chinese citizens, whereas in the Basic Law they pertain to the Hong Kong residents. Interestingly, in the HKSAR, Chinese citizens who are not permanent residents have fewer rights than foreign nationals who are permanent residents. Most notably, they don’t have the right to vote. By pegging rights and obligations to the Hong Kong residents and not to the Chinese citizens, Beijing’s political pragmatism is on full display in its handling of the affairs of post-1997 Hong Kong. Since many Hong Kong residents, particularly the economic elites, are not Chinese citizens, Beijing deems that it is politically inexpedient to impose legal obligations apropos of Chinese citizens on them, such as demanding that they be loyal to the Chinese nation.

Even though the Basic Law does not mention it, Beijing has all along made it explicit that Hong Kong residents must prevent Hong Kong from becoming a base of subversion against the socialist system of the mainland and the communist regime. Back in the early 1980s, Deng Xiaoping, the architect-in-chief of OCTS, had issued such an admonition and vowed to intervene if Hong Kong became a base of subversion. The obligation of Hong Kong residents not to do anything imperiling national and regime security was also solemnly made by President Xi Jinping on July 1, 2017. Xi laid down three “bottom lines” that, if infringed, would have dire consequences for Hong Kong. In no uncertain terms, Xi warned that “any attempt to endanger China’s sovereignty and security, challenge the power of the central government and the authority of the Basic Law, or use Hong Kong to carry out infiltration and sabotage activities against the mainland is an act that crosses the bottom line, and is impermissible.” Deng’s admonition and Xi’s three “bottom lines” thus should be understood as Hong Kong residents’ sacrosanct obligation to the nation defined in a “negative sense”.

Even though Hong Kong residents have minimal legal obligations under the Basic Law, it is hard to believe that Beijing does not harbor political expectations about the Chinese citizens in the HKSAR. By pinning the success of OCTS on “patriots governing Hong Kong”, Beijing would naturally like to see the diffusion of patriotism among the Chinese citizens in the HKSAR, specifically in the sense of identifying with the nation and supporting the communist regime. Nevertheless, Beijing, leery of possible negative political repercussions, had until recently refrained from promoting national or patriotic education in the HKSAR.

Much to Beijing’s chagrin, the reluctance of Beijing to inculcate patriotism in Hong Kong has ironically provided the anti-China and anti-communist forces an open field to peddle their wares. In the past two decades, various forms of separatism, the most pernicious being the call for Hong Kong independence, proliferated, particularly among the younger generation. The violent insurrection that erupted in 2019 represents the culmination of political alienation from and antagonism toward the Chinese nation in the HKSAR. Both Deng’s admonition and Xi’s warnings have been grossly defied in Beijing’s reckoning. True to its words, Beijing did step in and thoroughly suppressed the insurrection and its instigators.

The violent turmoil in Hong Kong and its threat to national security, not surprisingly, have impelled Beijing to make explicit the obligations of the Chinese citizens in the HKSAR. Until recently, the role and status of the Chinese Constitution in the HKSAR were left opaque. This enabled the political opposition to create an incorrect belief among many people that, even though Hong Kong was an inalienable part of China, the Chinese Constitution was not applicable in Hong Kong. In deliberate efforts to alert the Chinese citizens in the HKSAR to their obligations to the motherland, mainland officials and academics over the past several years repeatedly and robustly propagated the idea that the constitutional order of the HKSAR is made up of both the national Constitution and the Basic Law. This crucial point was explicitly and adamantly explicated by President Xi in 2017. Accordingly, understanding the national Constitution has become an important part of the national education curriculum in Hong Kong.

In the constitutional order of the HKSAR, while under the OCTS the socialist system of the mainland has no place in Hong Kong, those articles in the national Constitution which pertain to the obligations of Chinese citizens do have relevance. Similar to their counterparts on the mainland, the Chinese citizens in the HKSAR are, inter alia, obligated to “safeguard national unity and the solidarity of all the country’s ethnic groups,” (Art. 52), “safeguard the security, honor or interests of the motherland … and … not behave in any way that endangers the motherland’s security, honor or interests,” (Art. 54), and “to defend the motherland and resist aggression,” (Art. 55). As a matter of fact, in some ways, these obligations have been reflected in the content of the National Security Law for Hong Kong. The National Security Law for Hong Kong can also be understood as giving some legal effects to Deng’s admonitions and Xi’s warnings.

Equally important, the fourth plenum of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided on Oct 31, 2019, that the CPC should adopt a new strategy toward Hong Kong in the aftermath of the violent insurrection. A core component of the new strategy is to strengthen education on the national Constitution and the Basic Law, national conditions, Chinese history and Chinese culture in the HKSAR, especially among public officials and teenagers. Unmistakably, inherent in these educations are the inculcation of identification with and obligations to the motherland.

For a long time, when talking about “loving the country”, many Hong Kong people, especially those with anti-communist proclivity, have in mind a China understood in the “historical”, “geographical”, “cultural” or “ethnic” senses. This means that they refuse to identify with the People’s Republic of China, a country founded by the CPC in 1949. Opponents of the PRC are prone to disparage it by contrasting it with these abstract and romanticized “Chinas”.

The refusal of the Chinese citizens in Hong Kong to “love” the PRC is no longer tolerated. In an important and unprecedented speech delivered on Feb 22, 2021, Xia Baolong, a vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, made it patently clear that China is not an abstract entity; therefore, “to love China” is “to love the PRC”. “Loving the PRC” specifically means to uphold the national Constitution and the nation’s fundamental institutions set up by it.

Previously, the relationship between the Chinese citizens in Hong Kong and the CPC was left unaddressed because of its utmost sensitivity since not a few of the latter still harbor antipathy toward the CPC. Nevertheless, in a context of unabated and growing national security threats, particularly those coming from the US and its allies, this topic can no longer be treated as taboo. In the same speech, Xia laid down a “red line” that could not be crossed. He argued that since a patriot would not be allowed to do anything harmful to the fundamental institutions of the nation, ipso facto, he would not be allowed to do anything against the CPC. This point of Xia’s was given further effect by Luo Huining, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the HKSAR. Luo emphatically equated the maintenance of the leadership of the CPC with the maintenance of OCTS, the constitutional order of the HKSAR, the bright future of Hong Kong, and the well-being of Hong Kong people.

It’s clear by now that 25 years after Hong Kong’s return to the motherland, many of the implicit obligations of the Chinese citizens in the HKSAR have been made explicit and become legally binding, particularly by the explication of the national Constitution and the enactment of the National Security Law for Hong Kong. These obligations must be met not only by the Chinese citizens in Hong Kong without foreign nationality but also those foreign nationals of Chinese origin who choose to be recognized as Chinese citizens in Hong Kong following the interpretation of the Chinese Nationality Law by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in May 1996.

After more than 20 years of vicissitudes in the understanding of the rights and obligations of Hong Kong residents, now it is clear that as far as the Chinese citizens among the Hong Kong residents, who make up the majority of the population, are concerned, their rights and obligations are now much more balanced and reasonable as compared with what is stipulated in the Basic Law. The restoration of a proper balance of rights and obligations in the HKSAR will create a situation more conducive to a cordial relationship between the HKSAR and the mainland, and hence to the successful implementation of OCTS.

The author is a professor emeritus of sociology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and vice-president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.