“Be realistic, Demand the Impossible!” is a text attached to a bike during Hong Kong’s “Umbrella Movement” (September to November 2014). BBC News comments: “It’s getting hard to tell what is art and what isn’t. Is this a mode of transport with a slogan attached, or a piece of artwork that you can ride?” (“In Pictures: Hong Kong Protest Art.” October 16, 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-29648459?>). The bike is a conceptual artwork that intentionally blurs the boundary between art and life. It is one of the many examples about how art engages in politics in the Umbrella Movement. With simplicity and openness, it sends a message important to Hong Kong and beyond.
The artwork expresses the idea that Hong Kong residents demand solutions to crises they face in everyday life. Necessities of living – such as housing and food – often become impossible demands (out of reach) by those suffering from a variety of crises. Hong Kong residents in the past decade have to confront many serious issues: rapidly rising costs of living (including housing), growing income inequality, environmental deterioration, diminishing economic importance to the mainland, and substantial increases of mainland Chinese visitors and college students (“Seven Economic Shifts Underlying Hong Kong’s Divide With Beijing.” Bloomberg News, October 10, 2014. <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-05/seven-economic-shifts-underlying-hong-hong-s-divide-with-beijing.html>). To address these problems, the Umbrella Movement demands solutions in terms of “true democracy” or “universal suffrage.” In a way, this message resonates with those expressed by protesters at the original Occupy Central (2011-2012), Wall Street Occupiers in the United States, and the protesters in Europe and the Middle East in recent years.
Specific to the crises in Hong Kong, and their solutions, is the issue of Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland, which is economically close, historically colonial, politically antagonistic, and ethnically sensitive. Explicitly or implicitly, everything related to the mainland – Chinese sovereignty, the communist party, authoritarianism, or mainland immigrants, students, and visitors – has been a source of contention before, during, and after the movement. Mainstream media in the US and the UK covered the protests mostly from an antagonistic perspective as a way to push for policy changes in Hong Kong and China in terms of democracy and freedom. Meanwhile, alternative media observers argue that the movement in Hong Kong is inseparable from “racial” and “nationalistic” biases toward the immigrants, especially those from the mainland (e.g., Nao, “Black vs. Yellow: Class Antagonism and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement.” October 3, 2014. <http://www.libcom.org/black-yellow-hk>).
To address the crises in Hong Kong, it is necessary to understand the ways in which colonial/imperial history shapes neoliberalism that ties Hong Kong and China together. The Hong Kong territory was historically formed from 1842 – when China ceded the Hong Kong Island to Britain according to “The Treaty of Nanjing” – to 1984, when China and Britain agreed that the Chinese government would resume sovereignty over Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, and maintain Hong Kong’s prosperity and a high degree of autonomy for fifty years (Hai Ren, Culture and Neoliberalism in China and Hong Kong. London: Routledge, 2010, Chapter 1). Under British rule, Hong Kong had never become a democratic society. In fact, Britain governed Hong Kong only as a place for business, not politics. Combining colonial conditions and close economic ties with the mainland, Hong Kong has become a model for the global neoliberal economy. Milton Friedman, one of the most influential neoliberal theorists, touts Hong Kong as a model from which the United States needs to learn. The Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal consistently place Hong Kong at the top of their global rankings of “economic freedom.” After 1984, both Hong Kong and China made efforts to prepare for Hong Kong’s return to China. For example, Hong Kong’s museums and preservation projects attempted to create and preserve Hong Kong’s historical memories. Meanwhile, mainland museums and historical representations had to address how a socialist country could accommodate a capitalist society. A version of neoliberalism in the name of “one country, two systems” was gradually developed (Ibid). Immediately after July 1, 1997, the Chinese government began to modify the constitutions of the communist party and the country. The English name of the party, for example, was changed from the “Chinese Communist Party” to the “Communist Party of China.” What counts as “the people” of the Chinese nation-state has changed significantly to include the capitalists (both from Hong Kong and other parts of China) and the middle classes (Hai Ren, The Middle Class in Neoliberal China. London: Routledge, 2013, Chapter 1). While transforming the mainland into a neoliberal economy, the Chinese government maintains Hong Kong’s neoliberal system according to its promise to countries like Britain and the United States.
Thus, finding solutions to the crises in Hong Kong entails identifying alternatives to Hong Kong’s neoliberal system itself. The Umbrella Movement has provided an historical opportunity for imagining and enacting alternatives through artistic practices. The collaborative production of the popular song and music video “Umbrella” is a good example (方欣浩, “運動歌曲《雨遮》:從學生創作到現場動員.” November 14, 2014. <http://www.vjmedia.com.hk/articles/2014/11/14/90789>). The lyrics are based on a poem written by a high school student. The music composition and studio recording involved collaborative efforts by a group of students. In producing the music video at a protest camp, participants included students, residents, and even mainland visitors. This and other examples may testify how perseverant Hong Kong’s entrepreneurism is. However, one significant aspect of this artwork that is incommensurable with neoliberal entrepreneurism is that its creation is achieved through a do-it-together collaboration (rather than do-it-yourself competition). Instead of being incorporated into a new mode of the creative economy, moreover, this collaboration takes the form of taking care of themselves, signaling possibilities for inventing a new political culture in Hong Kong.
Hai Ren is Associate Professor of East Asian Studies and Anthropology at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Neoliberalism and Culture in China and Hong Kong (2010) and The Middle Class in Neoliberal China (2013), and a co-editor of the anthology Global Futures in East Asia (2013).
Editors’ note: the SEAA editors are organizing a series of articles comparing the two recent social movements: the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan and the Umbrella Protest in Hong Kong. Please email Heidi Lam (heidi.lam@yale.edu) and Yi Zhou (yizhou@ucdavis.edu) to submit suggestions or if you are interested in contributing a paper on this topic.