The Coming of an Overseas Hongkonger Identity and Taiwan-Hong Kong Connection: Reflection on the Legacy of the Umbrella Movement
It was the evening of 1
October 2014. I, then an overseas Hongkonger international student studying in
the UK, was among the thousands of people rallying at Portland Place in Central
London. It was the largest protest outside the Embassy of China in London after
the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989. People chanted slogans for democracy and
universal suffrage, echoing the demands of the protesters in Hong Kong. Some of
them also held the news photos and wished to let the passers-by know what was
happening in Hong Kong. The rally in London was just one of the many
solidarity actions, large and small, spontaneously
organised by overseas Hong Kong communities across the globe. While most of the
demonstrators at the London rally were Hongkongers living in the UK, overseas
Taiwanese were also joining in to support the cause in Hong Kong. Five years
later, during the Anti-Extradition Movement, I was a postdoctoral fellow and a
part-time lecturer in Taiwan. As I was based overseas during these important
movements, I will reflect on the legacy of the Umbrella Movement from an
overseas Hongkonger’s perspective. Having gained first-hand insights into the
growing concern of Hong Kong in Taiwan and the mutual gap of understanding
between Taiwanese and Hongkongers after a few years of living and working in
Taiwan, I will also discuss the future of the Taiwan-Hong Kong connection.
The
overseas Taiwanese communities’ solidarity with the Sunflower Movement gave me
an insight into what and how the diasporic communities could do to support a
pro-democratic cause at home. Within a few days of the protestors’ occupation
of the legislative chamber on the night of 18 March 2014 (afternoon in the UK),
messages calling for solidarity actions had already been spread among Taiwanese
students in the UK. Sit-ins took place at Trafalgar Square in Central London.
Overseas Taiwanese communities across different continents also coordinated a
global solidarity action day to show their support for the causes of the
Sunflower Movement on 29 and 30 March (depending on time zones). More than
showing support for the causes and encouraging the activists at home, these
overseas rallies also serve as platforms to allow the wider international
community to understand the situation in Taiwan.
Similarly, overseas Hong Kong communities also organised solidarity actions in
places where they lived to show support for the Umbrella Movement and to let
the wider communities in the host countries understand what was going on in
Hong Kong. There have been diaspora mobilisation and
activism traditions
in places with more established Hong Kong communities, dating back to the
support of the 1989 Democratic Movement in China. Hong Kong communities in the
UK, including international students and British Hongkongers, supported the
campaigns against the Moral and
National Education proposal in 2012 and the Northeast New Territories
New Development Area plan in 2014. While the more
established Hong Kong communities planned their solidarity action to coincide
with the student strike before the actual outbreak of the Umbrella Movement to
show their support, it was the (online) witness of police brutality and firing of
tear gas in the city centre sparked
the anger and anxiety of many overseas Hongkongers, resulting a large-scale
spontaneous global solidarity action across the globe. People could no longer
tolerate sitting at home and doing nothing. These overseas Hongkongers tried to
do whatever they could to show their support and tell the world what was
happening in Hong Kong, including calling large and small solidarity actions
somewhere near them.
Looking at such diaspora
mobilisation and activism in the longer term, it can even be argued that these
spontaneous solidarity rallies for democracy in Hong Kong during the Umbrella
Movement were an earlier version of the ‘International Front’ (gwok zai sin國際線), popularised
during the Anti-Extradition Movement in 2019. The overseas Hongkongers’ anger and anxiety, as well as their
love and concern for Hong Kong, led to these non-politically active overseas
Hongkongers spontaneously organising and attending solidarity actions and
rallies across the world. While they might have become quieter at different
times, their concerns about Hong Kong did not die out. When there was a big
crisis or ‘event’, such as the Anti-Extradition Movement in 2019, the overseas Hongkongers
became active and mobilised again. In short, the Umbrella
Movement paved the way for the coming of overseas Hongkonger identity, built
upon their shared concern for Hong Kong. After the ‘exodus’ of Hongkongers
since 2019/2020, I have also observed that Hongkonger diasporic communities use
different methods, such as organising markets, festivals, and exhibitions,
setting up community libraries, and creating
artworks and
cultural products, as a way to preserve Hong Kong culture,
express Hong Kong identity, and communicate with the local and the wider Hong
Kong diasporic communities. How overseas Hongkonger identity will evolve is
something worth further observing and examining.
Taiwan has been a special case in international solidarity and supporting Hong
Kong’s pro-democratic cause. Overseas Taiwanese people participated in overseas
solidarity actions of the Umbrella Movement. The civil society organisations in
Taiwan also (co-)organised several solidarity rallies during the Umbrella
Movement and the later Anti-Extradition Movement. There has been observable
growing interest in Hong Kong in recent years. Formosa Salon (倫敦講臺), a London-based Taiwanese
student group formed after the Sunflower Movement,
asked me to share some background knowledge of democratic development in Hong
Kong during the Umbrella Movement. They would have invited a few more speakers
to share various topics about Hong Kong in the next few years. A screening of
the short film series Ten Years attracted a full lecture hall audience in Taipei. Any modules
related to Hong Kong in universities in Taiwan, be it political, social, or
cultural, would almost guarantee enough enrolment. Recently, there have also
been more Hong Kong-related art exhibitions in Taiwan, curated by Taiwanese or
overseas Hongkonger curators.
There is no doubt that China is a significant factor that brings Taiwanese and
Hongkongers closer to each other. Nevertheless, if both groups only tried to
engage with each other and interpret their counterparts through the lens of the
so-called China factor, they would not understand how each other has become the
societies as such at this moment. They would also not understand what the
others had experienced and how their identities were made and evolved,
especially those that could not be explained in terms of the China factor. In
Hong Kong, the understanding of Taiwan has long been framed by the lens and
narratives of Kuomintang due to the historical Communist-Kuomintang rivalry. Pro-Kuomintang
groups have
long been (mis-)called ‘pro-Taiwan groups’ (can toi tyun tai 親台團體) in Hong Kong. Influenced by this frame, many Hongkongers had
long been ignorant of the Japanese colonial period and its socio-cultural
significance to Taiwan; they were unaware of democratic development and
localist historiography of Taiwan until around the late 2000s and the 2010s.
Meanwhile, understanding
local identity merely as antagonistic to China, as some Taiwanese do, would
miss the complexity of the making of evolving of Hong Kong (cultural) identity.
Rather than a political movement, local consciousness or local cultural identity
has long been embedded in Hong Kong
literature and popular culture. The
memories and commemoration of the Tiananmen Massacre have been an integral part of the formation and transformation
of Hong Kong’s identity.
In Taiwan, I once taught a
module on Hong Kong literature and cinema in relation to identity. In the
module, I elaborated on the regional connections of Hong Kong and the
complexity and multiple layers of Hong Kong identity. Through these teaching
activities, I wished to bring in a more nuanced understanding of how Hong Kong
society and cultural identity evolved. In recent years, more and more
Hongkongers immigrated to Taiwan. While there have been disillusions and
disputes between the Hong Kong immigrants and Taiwanese people, some Hong Kong
immigrants also attempt to engage with the Taiwanese societies and better
understand their new home. Members of the overseas Hongkonger communities also
organise various events to let the Taiwanese societies better understand Hong
Kong culture. Hopefully, these exchanges would let both groups better
understand each other.
The
Umbrella Movement has been significant for the coming of overseas Hongkonger
identity and connecting the Taiwanese and Hongkonger communities. While the
shared concern of and resisting the growing hegemonic China is the starting
point of such connection, both communities should go beyond that to better
understand and empathise with each other.
Dr Desmond Hok-Man Sham is
an Assistant Professor in Cultural and Creative Industries at the Department of
Cultural, Media and Visual Studies and a Resident Senior Fellow at the Taiwan
Research Hub at the University of Nottingham. Born and raised in Hong Kong,
Desmond received his PhD in Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of
London. Prior to joining the University of Nottingham, he held research and
teaching positions at various universities in Singapore and Taiwan.