This is an attempt to categorize the actions of destroying Hong Kong by the mainland Chinese government. As you are going to see, it follows much the same way how they colonised Tibet.
The things that you see here you may not see in mainstream Western media. They are often biased, either because of China's economic influence, or because the reporters, like most highly-educated people, tend to have a "left-wing" philosophy that view the mainland Chinese as victims and see themselves (and by our history of Western connection, HK people) as having the "original sin" of being imperial colonists and are always sympathetic toward the mainland Chinese.
Dilute HK local population by (1) sending huge number of Chinese immigrants and (2) kicking out local residents.
1.1 Immigration
Through numerous schemes, some of which described below, many mainland Chinese have emigrated to HK since 1997:
1.1 One-way permit: this is a 150 daily quota for mainland Chinese to emigrate to Hong Kong. Although it is claimed to be used for family reunion purposes, Hong Kong has no control whatsoever about who arrives and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that many of the quota are used for other purposes. Over the years it is estimated that at least 700,000 people have come down here via this route, one-tenth of the population.
1.2 Mainland babies:
1.3 Post-study work visa and "highly skilled" workers:
Effects
Land and housing:
Social welfare:
Job/study opportunities:
rigging election in favour of pro-mainland parties:
1.2 Expunge of Local HK People
All kinds of locals are "encouraged" or even forced to leave HK:
Every "Chief Executive" from Tung Chee-wa to Donald Tsang to Leung Chun-Ying has repeatedly encourage local HK people to move to mainland China to "start a business", claiming there are numerous business opportunities. (In reality they are extremely unlikely to survive.)
Students are encouraged to study at mainland universities: there are stipends (out of taxpayers' pockets of course) for this. (At the same time, local universities are encouraged to take mainland Chinese students.)
Encourage older people to live in Guandong region by letting them continue receive the old-age allowance. Ironically enough, some western media depicted this as HK expunging its "unwanted" population to China.
There are plans to build public housing in mainland (南沙) and send HK people to live there. Since only the lower income people live in public housing, this effectively sends the disadvantaged locals out of HK.
Through various economic means, the property prices and living costs in HK become so high that many people cannot afford to live in HK and have to move to nearby China area.
1.3 Ultimate Aim
These immigrants are now calling themselves as "new" HKer. If you think the locals are then the "old" HKers then you are very wrong: slowly they will begin to say that the old HKer "cannot keep up with the new times" and "has no right to be a HKer". The ultimate aim is complete elimination of real HK people, to be replaced by mainland Chinese. They have used this strategy elsewhere, and in fact such controversy has happened in some mainland cities.
1.4 Common leftist arguments and counterarguments
Sadly many local HK media and public figures use many arguments to cover this fact and try to prevent HK people from stopping this:
"You lot were also immigrants": it is true that many of the older generation here originally come from China, and therefore most local HK people either directly come from China or are descendents of someone who did. However, those migrants back then moved to HK because they were against the communist regime, unlike those now who are either indifferent or even proud of the regime. Secondly, the older generation immigrants appreciated the opportunity to be here, settled and immersed themselves with the local culture, earned their living with their own hands, and lived a humble life but with respect. Whereas these new immigrants refuse to integrate with the local culture, instead trying to change HK's culture to suit them (for example speak their Putonghua and insists others to do the same); often live on benefits; but ironically somehow see themselves as the "master" of HK and are superior in that they are "more Chinese" than local HKers. (More on this later...)
"Family reunion is a human right": (1) First of all many "family reunion" are not real, they are fake marriages typically between older HK man and much younger mainland women. Sometimes both are willing participants (the man got paid and the woman got HK residency), sometimes the HK man was lied to and once arrived, the woman will accuse the man of "home violence" and ask for a divorce (and then goes on to live on benefits). Sometimes these women were even already married in China and once divorced with the fake husband here, will apply for "family reunion" to get their real husband and family from China to HK. (2) Even in Western countries, family reunion is not an absolute right, and any applicant have to show that they can financially support themselves before they are allowed in. Even in HK, such rules apply to non-China immigrants. Only mainland Chinese immigrants are exempt from this.
2.1 Putonghua
Putonghua in China and Taiwan
When most of you "gwei lo" speak "Chinese" like "ni hao", you are speaking Putonghua/Mandarin. It is not the real Chinese language spoken by the Chinese in say 500 years ago; it is some kind of artificial language constructed heavily based on Mongolian, Manchurian and Northern Chinese languages. Hong Kong people (and people in the Guang Dong area) speak Cantonese, which is arguably closer to the “real” Chinese language, and that Putonghua being the predominant form of Chinese language is merely an unfortunate historical incident. We are not trying to overturn it now; we are merely trying to slow down its spread into Hong Kong.
Putonghua in HK
China (and the local HK government and other organisations) are actively promoting Putonghua and suppressing Cantonese, e.g. in TV, PA in transport systems, in schools. They create an impression that Putonghua is the "superior" language and Cantonese is just some local dialects that should be exterminated. Moreover some HK parents actually believe that.
In fact this is not only HK's problem; there are resistance in GuanZhou for example against the eradication of Cantonese.
Putonghua as medium of instruction in schools
2.2 Simplified Chinese characters
Now I know I am not going to get a lot of sympathy from you "gwei-lo" on this issue but I will say it anyway...
Simplified characters in mainland China
This is not the purpose of this article, so I will be very brief: simplified characters are a politically-motivated creation, created by the communist party in the 1950s. Its true purpose is to eradicate traditional Chinese culture, exactly what Newspeak was for in "Nineteen Eighty-Four". (In fact almost every thing that the Chinese communist party do can be traced back to "Nineteen Eighty-Four", but more on that later.) They made up many cover-up reasons, from more plausible ones like "reducing illiteracy" to the completely ridiculous "saving ink." It's probably too late and too difficult to reintroduce the proper Chinese characters back in China; an entire generation was born under it. In fact many of them will fiercely argue against you about this, not knowing their ignorance (and claiming that you are ignorant.) But we're not trying to do that, all we want is to stop it from infiltrating HK.
Simplified characters in HK
Slowly after 1997 simplified characters appeared in HK. First it was at tourist locations, following the "individual tourism" since 2003; this is perhaps understandable. But then it spread and many signs no longer have traditional Chinese characters in it. HKers going shopping feel that they are not regarded as equal. In recent years even the government signs and non-tourist-area commercial sites begin to show only simplified characters, to the outrage of many locals.
Also known derogatively as "amputated characters" since they are akin to chopping off arms and legs of the characters.
2.3 Mainland-style translation
In China, names or even ordinary words are often "translated" into "English" using their pronunciation (pinyin) symbol, often replacing the old names. E.g. Peking -> Beijing, Canton -> Guangzhou. This has spread to Hong Kong, and even the name "Hong Kong" has become "Xianggang" in a number of local or Western media.
To geographically absorb HK, the Chinese initiated many cross-border transport intrastructure and "development" of rural areas near the border.
3.1 Cross-border transport infrastructure
Numerous cross-border transport infrastructure, including a high-speed railway, to “integrate” HK closer into China and made it more easily accessible to mainland “invaders”.
3.2 North-East New Territories development
The northernmost part of HK, bordering Shenzhen, is traditionally a "green area" with no urban development; in fact there is an explicit exclusion zone. It was set up back in British days to deter mainland Chinese illegal immigrants. However the government is now planning to "develop" the area; once it becomes an urban area it is very difficult to limit people crossing the border. In addition, the plan is to allow mainland Chinese visa-free access to the area, effectively "cutting out" an area and giving it away, and taking down the border altogether.
3.3 pan-Pearl Delta planning
Hong Kong have lost its autonomy in terms of urban development planning; it is now part of the “Greater Pearl Delta region” planning made without any say from HK (though the HK government denies this.)
The HK puppet government continually make HK more and more reliant on mainland Chinese supply on these strategic resources. This means we lose control of our own lives and let the Chinese "masters" withhold the supply and "punish" their colonial slaves whenever they like. It also adds to their fallacious argument that HK is "cared" by China as if a parent cares their son.
4.1 Water
HK (at present) cannot meet fully its own need of water, and the HK government has always bought water from China. However, they used the following tactics to increase our reliance on China, and also financially benefit them and hurt us:
The amount of water bought keeps increasing, even though the demand has not increased (most industries have moved to China or died). The quantity bought is also fixed; excessive water are simply poured down the sea, and it is a significant part of the water bought.
The price is unreasonably high, and keeps increasing: it is 260 times more expensive than the price Malaysia charged to Singapore.
Slow reaction to proposals of desalination of sea water.
4.2 Electricity
Since the late 19-th century HK has always produced its own electricity. However, the HK government is now proposing to buy electricity from China. Its two main excuses are
Open up the elecricity market for competition: electricity in HK has always been monopolized by two companies. However, such "competition" is fake since all these mainland companies are state-run. And if they really wanted "competition" then why is it still the case that HK Island is supplied by one company, and Kowloon and New Territories are supplied by another one, and therefore customers can never switch supplier? Not to mention that the one supplying the HK Island charges much higher.
Review of fuel combination: due to a number of reasons like pollution, greenhouse gases etc, the government claims it needs to review the combination of electricity source.
Other than the obvious problems of reliance and the "caring" propaganda as mentioned above, there are other problems:
Cost: although the proposed plan is to buy 30% of electricity from China, no doubt this will increase over time, and when they monopolized it it will be impossible for HK to have any bargaining power (in any case the HK puppet government is not going to fight for a bargain.) The cost will then only rise substantially. The experience of Macau says it all: since switching to China supplies their electricity cost have hugely increased.
Reliability: China's electricity supply has never been reliable, with much longer outage times than HK. During peak season there were often scheduled or unscheduled rationing of electricity.
4.3 Food supplies
Many people, even the locals, have the impression that HK have no agriculture and therefore food supply simply have to rely on China. While it is true that HK never grow enough of its own food and agriculture is always a very small part of the economy, agriculture do exist; there are (well, were) small-scale vegetable growing, quite substantial pig and chicken farms, and fisheries. However the government again is doing its utmost to destroy them:
(1) Taking away licences of local farms, usually by giving monetary incentives. Since 1997, the number of licences has decreased by 90%.
(2) Using bird-flu as an excuse to kill off the local chicken livestock industry - even when chicken imported from China could also suffer the same problem
(3) Most agricultural land are at the north, near the border, and the cross- or near-border infrastructure reclaims such land and unroot the industry altogether. This is particularly the case for the NE development (Section 3.2).
They also did a lot to favour the Chinese supply and to increase HK's reliance on it:
(1) Monopolize food supply from China: for example, live beef imports China are monopolized by a state-backed company.
(2) As everyone in China knows, nothing in China is safe to eat; they do not dare to eat their own food. Of course this also includes products exported to HK (despite their claim that they only allow the highest-quality products to be supplied to HK, again a pretence that they "care" HK.) In particular, there was an incident where the HK government relaxes the control on several types of pesticides at the request of the Chinese government, because otherwise their products would not have complied to the tighter standards.
4.4 Transport
Many new public transport systems and vehicles are purchased from China, despite their poor safety record. This includes train carriages and signalling systems, buses, taxis, etc. Often "environmental protection" is used as an excuse regarding electric vehicles.
5.1 "Tourism"
Since 2003 a large number of "tourists" from China come to HK every year. You may think "what's wrong with it?" Well here are the problems.
Many of them are not "tourists" but are smugglers, transporting goods back to China very frequently, sometimes several times a day. They send everything from iPhones to chocolates and candies. Of particular note is baby milk products; as you may be aware, this has even affected Western countries like Germany and New Zealand which are so far away, never mind HK. It has gone so badly that local parents were at one point struggling to buy these baby milk products.
Negative impact:
From the more immediate, materialistic point, these smuggling activities created many problems:
- higher prices of everyday products, and even difficulty in buying them
- higher property prices, as so many "shops" are opened for those smugglers
- elimination of other types of shops. Shops that do not sell the type of things they buy cannot afford the much higher rent. There are now many areas in HK, both traditional tourist areas and local residential areas, where the streets are full of jewellery and gold shops, cosmetics shops, and "pharmacies" (which are not really about medication but sell baby formula milk, biscuits and the like). Local residents simply cannot satisfy their everyday needs locally since there are no other shops.
- squeeze on living space. Shopping arcades, even streets, are full of those smugglers who not only clog the shops but also the streets as they pack their stuff right outside the shops (to be transported across the border right-away)
However there are much more serious issues at a fundamental level:
- HK's economy is therefore highly skewed towards such retailing activities. This is a deliberate attempt to make HK's economy reliant on China, and also ensure that they are all low-skill, low-added-value type of industries, unlike e.g. IT or creative industries. Effectively HK has become a huge supermarket.
- The influx of mainland Chinese changes to culture. Most shops now employ staff that speak Putonghua; many signs are written in simplified Chinese charactersl etc.
5.2 CEPA and Infiltration of Chinese capital
5.3 Bias towards Chinese companies
5.4 Destroying HK's status as a global financial centre
6. Education
6.1 Brainwashing in schools
6.2 "National Education"
7. Media
8. Putting mainland Chinese in important positions
9. Public policy, police, and judicial bias in favour of mainland Chinese
10. Military occupation
11. Lying about HK's dependence on China and spreading hatred among mainland Chinese towards HK