THENEWYORKER, SEPTEMBER 2, 2019 13
COMMENT
HONGKONGONTHEMARCH
J
ust before Hong Kong returned to
Chinese control in 1997, a team of be-
havioral scientists conducted a fascinat-
ing experiment. Ying-yi Hong and some
colleagues recruited local college students
and showed them a set of iconic images
either from America (Mickey Mouse, a
cowboy) or from China (the Monkey
King, a dragon). Then they posed ques-
tions intended to elicit their values and
beliefs. The results revealed that, depend-
ing on which images were presented, the
students readily switched between Chi-
nese and Western world views.
Twenty-two years later, young peo-
ple in Hong Kong describe themselves,
overwhelmingly, as “Hong Kongers”
rather than “Chinese.” Their resent-
ment of the Communist Party’s grow-
ing involvement in their politics and
culture has fuelled the crisis that has
consumed the territory this summer.
Protests that began, in June, in response
to a proposed extradition law have ex-
panded into a broad-based movement
with the slogan “Retake Hong Kong,
Revolution of Our Times.” A city that
prides itself on high-toned rule of law
has become the backdrop for a grinding
standoff between police in riot gear and
young men and women in gas masks,
goggles, and yellow helmets, testing the
resolve of one of the world’s economic
centers and the dexterity of China’s Pres-
ident, Xi Jinping. A popular protest
motto on banners and city walls evokes
the stakes: “If we burn, you burn with us.”
In Beijing, the Communist Party
was at first largely silent about the un-
rest, but, after protesters defaced the na-
tional insignia of China’s liaison office,
on July 21st, Chinese media called them
“separatists” and the movement a “color
revolution”—poisonous terms in Chinese
politics. Though Facebook and Twitter
are banned on the mainland, the Party
launched a global social-media cam-
paign. In a tweet, China Central Televi-
sion adapted Martin Niemöller’s language
to liken the protesters to Nazis (“First
they hurled bricks.. .”). Other posts cir-
culated conspiracy theories; a man in a
photograph taken at a protest was la-
belled a C.I.A. “commander,” when, in
fact, he worked for the New York Times.
Last Monday, Twitter accused China
of a “coordinated state-backed” opera-
tion “specifically attempting to sow po-
litical discord in Hong Kong.” The site
barred advertising by China’s state media,
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOÃO FAZENDA
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
and dropped nearly a thousand accounts,
some of which operated under the kind
of fake, folksy personae used by Rus-
sian agents in the U.S. election in 2016.
One Chinese account described its
owner as a “coupon clipping, money sav-
ing, low key hustling super mom” in Co-
lumbus, Ohio, who lives “in the sub-
urbs” but is “from the hood.” Facebook
and YouTube undertook a similar cull.
By late August, the protests had
evolved into the most sustained chal-
lenge to the Chinese Communist Party
since the uprising in Tiananmen Square,
thirty years ago—an ominous distinction.
In 1989, the Party blamed the tumult on
a cabal of foreign “black hands,” before
unleashing troops who killed hundreds,
perhaps thousands, in and around the
square. This summer, Party officials once
again blamed the unrest on “black hands,”
and warned Hong Kong’s protesters not
to “play with fire” or “mistake restraint
for weakness.” To drive home the point,
the People’s Liberation Army garrison in
Hong Kong, which rarely draws atten-
tion to itself, released a video in which
troops performed riot-control exercises.
Just across a bridge, on the mainland, the
Shenzhen Bay Sports Center became the
site of an encampment of military vehi-
cles for the People’s Armed Police, a para-
military force. In a video posted by the
People’s Daily, an officer with a mega-
phone shouted in Cantonese, which is
spoken in Hong Kong, “Stop the vio-
lence! Repent and be saved!”
The turmoil on China’s cosmopoli-
tan coast is anathema to the instincts
of China’s sixty-six-year-old President,
both personally and politically. The son
