Routledge Contemporary China Series, no. 174. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. xiv, 280 pp. (Tables, graphs.) US$150.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-138-69005-9.
Much of the global academic community has been slow to appreciate the significance of the political crisis in Hong Kong society. Indeed, the latter also has a “slow burn” quality, as the tumultuous moment of autumn 2014, which saw an unprecedented uprising of Hong Kong citizens demanding the introduction of genuine universal suffrage, has given way to a period characterized by authoritarian encroachment on the polity’s institutions and the relative pacification of the radical movement. This new phase has also, however, brought greater scholarly attention, as a wave of political writings reflect upon the modalities and significance of these changes.
Interest Groups and the New Democracy Movement in Hong Kong, a highly original volume edited by Sonny Shiu-Hing Lo of Hong Kong University, constitutes a compelling contribution to this literature. The book is comprised of a series of case study chapters, each focusing on a distinctive form of pressure group activity and social mobilization.
Unusually in relation to most academic writing on Hong Kong politics, Shiu-Hing Lo frames the book in Marxian terms, drawing on Antonio Gramsci’s conception of the “organic intellectuals” as a stratum that stands between civil society and political society, working for democracy, liberation, and social change. For Gramsci, thinkers of this type were contrasted to the intellectuals of tradition who generated the ideas and discourses favourable to the continued hegemony of the ruling group. As Shiu-Hing Lo notes, these concepts are not only amenable to how we understand the modus operandi of the typical pressure group, which generates discourses and policy proposal through the use of intellectual labour, but are also rather germane to the Hong Kong democracy movement. The polity’s unique status, vis-à-vis Mainland China, allows for a degree of free speech and assembly, which enable the emergence of a body of intellectual criticism and pressure group activity that can mobilize discourses antagonistic to Beijing. Nonetheless, this group of intellectuals lacks the power to dislodge its current governmental structure.
Shiu-Hing Lo discusses the new generation of organic intellectuals thrown up by the Umbrella Movement, noting the rise of nativist and pro-independence political thought amongst this milieu. These groupings, seen in the context of the authoritarian turn in Beijing, have exposed themselves to a significant risk of political repression, including disenfranchisement from the polity’s limited electoral process and, in some cases, full-scale incarceration. These circumstances ultimately continue to favour a moderate approach, rather than one seeking radical rupture with Mainland China. Gramsci often implied he too drew similar conclusions from his experience of political repression, arguing that the “war of position” (seeking long-term institutional change) must at least complement a “war of movement” (seeking a radical shift). The book thus finishes on a relatively hopeful note, arguing that the simple existence of financially independent civil society pressure groups, with organic intellectuals to promote their causes, has created a pluralistic society that can have a positive influence on Mainland China’s modernization process over the decades ahead.
Nonetheless, and perhaps standing in a degree of tension to this positive conclusion, the book’s case study chapters bring to life the severity of the repression that pressure groups have experienced in recent years. The extent to which these are directly orchestrated from Beijing can only be speculated upon. But perhaps a weakness of the book is its insufficient contextualisation of these attacks on Hong Kong civil society. Specifically, Xi Jinping’s development of an increasingly personalized, rather than institutionalized, dictatorship casts a long shadow over developments in the polity and may speak against some of the optimistic predictions the book at times posits. Stephan Ortmann’s chapter on the development of Hong Kong nativism does, however, illustrate the irreconcilability of these two competing representations of Hong Kong: on the one hand, an increasingly authoritarian Chinese identity synonymous with communist rule that visualizes a future for Hong Kong as a “normal” PRC province; and, on the other, a radical new nativist conception that denies a Chinese component to its identity, promoting instead a radical separatism.
Several other chapters also stand out as being of particular importance. Karen Man Yee Lee’s account of the contradictory position of Hong Kong’s legal profession provides an important insight into the antagonistic cleavages the “one country, two systems” settlement has created. Many have seen the polity’s independent judiciary as the ultimate success story of the transition to Chinese rule, but, as Lee discusses, this has come under pressure in recent years and the legal profession has had to carefully balance a defence of the rule of law with a commitment to neutrality. In a welcome addition to the volume, two further chapters explore the role of labour movement organizations as a distinctive form of pressure group activity that could easily be overlooked in a society with low levels of union density by East Asian standards. Jeff Hai-Chi Loo’s analysis of the class system focuses on the fragmented nature of the working-class subject in Hong Kong, though the overly determinist framework proves a detriment. Steven Chung-Fun Hung describes how the teachers’ union has retained the traditional pan-democratic orientation, choosing to promote a Chinese identity but one that is not based upon fidelity to the CCP. As he suggests, this commitment to the tradition of the “Tiananmen generation” may have a longer life than the recent localist denouement implies, particularly if it links the democratic movement to the struggle for social justice.
Overall, the book represents an important contribution to the literature on Hong Kong after the Umbrella Movement. While its cautious tone could be seen as overly conservative in the context of the polarization Hong Kong society has experienced, its focus on pressure group activity associated with the pan-democratic camp serves as a reminder that this position retains a significant institutional foundation and social base, despite the rise of radical localist currents.
Luke Cooper
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, United Kingdom