I am a 16 year old, locally schooled Hong Kong resident.
The rash implementation of Moral and National Education is but another attempt by the Central Government in the grand scheme of things to assimilate Hong Kong.
Although the protest will probably succeed in stalling it, given its massive public inertia , such victory is short-lived.
China will reclaim Hong Kong, no matter how vehement we protest . Deng Xiaoping's 'One Country, Two Systems' is the sole reason why Hong Kong has been allowed to escape the fate of its neighbouring provinces, and evolve into what it is now.
According to Chapter 1, Article 5 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, the constitutional document of HKSAR reads: 'The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.'
28 years has passed. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has already demonstrated that it will not lie dormant until then.
Consider the 2012 Legislative Council Election, which is to be held tomorrow. It introduces the new system of 'Super Seats', where elected 'Super' district councillors' votes will count twice as much as their 'ordinary' colleagues. Thanks to CPC, pro-establishment district councillors' are likely to be voted in, and thus fulfill their function as pawns of the Hong Kong government in the legislative council, passing whatever law CPC desires.
'The [Hong Kong political] system ensures that every government-led initiative -- which otherwise would have been killed by democratically elected lawmakers in a separate vote count -- sails through the Legco without a hitch. As a result, our legislative and executive branches always march in lock steps. How is that for a separation of powers?'
(How functional constituencies hinder the city’s path to full democracy:)
'Functional constituencies are the reason why taxpayers are forking out HK$67 billion for 26 kilometers of wasteful express railway, why the investigation of C.Y. Leung’s conflicts of interest in the West Kowloon bid was dropped, and why the government is sitting on trillions of foreign reserves and we still don’t have a social security plan.'
Not sure which 28 years you are referring to, but the handover was in 1997 and the 15 year anniversary has just been celebrated in July.
35 more years to go before Hong Kong becomes another Chinese province (or not if China decides that this 2-system thing works well for their interests), but I'm also worried about the direction taken by China and its obvious hand in trying to shape Hong Kong politics to its liking.
I'm still hopeful in that in Hong Kong, pragmatism usually prevail and even if schools were force-fed such propaganda it's dubious that it would have much of a real impact, given that information is still free in HK and people know better.
I will be very worried when censorship or monitoring laws start to pass through the legislature.
True democracy will never be achieved in Hong Kong, there will always be intense supervision by China.
It's fairly obvious that many aspects of the freedoms we currently enjoy in Hong Kong will be under siege over the next 35 years.
The rash implementation of Moral and National Education is but another attempt by the Central Government in the grand scheme of things to assimilate Hong Kong. Although the protest will probably succeed in stalling it, given its massive public inertia , such victory is short-lived.
China will reclaim Hong Kong, no matter how vehement we protest . Deng Xiaoping's 'One Country, Two Systems' is the sole reason why Hong Kong has been allowed to escape the fate of its neighbouring provinces, and evolve into what it is now.
According to Chapter 1, Article 5 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, the constitutional document of HKSAR reads: 'The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.'
28 years has passed. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has already demonstrated that it will not lie dormant until then.
Consider the 2012 Legislative Council Election, which is to be held tomorrow. It introduces the new system of 'Super Seats', where elected 'Super' district councillors' votes will count twice as much as their 'ordinary' colleagues. Thanks to CPC, pro-establishment district councillors' are likely to be voted in, and thus fulfill their function as pawns of the Hong Kong government in the legislative council, passing whatever law CPC desires.
http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1030842/electile-d...
For the past decades, Hong Kong has never been a true democracy. I fear my generation will fare worse.