20151118 Safeguarding Hong Kong from "Mainlandization" 

Deputy President, China is on the track of growth and development. This is a fact widely recognized by the world. But in Hong Kong, many people, particularly some youngsters, still look at the China today from old perspectives. They disapprove of the Mainland and the behaviours of the Mainlanders. In their eyes, the Mainlanders are coarse, corrupt, uncivilized and undemocratic nouveau riche. They are often criticized for their uncivilized behaviours when travelling abroad. Our young people seldom visit the Mainland and know not much about Chinese history. They learn about the Mainland mainly through teachers, the media or hearsays between peers. Thus, subjectivity may easily overwhelm objectivity. Day after day and bit by bit, they are preached that Hong Kong will be hopeless if it follows the Mainland. And apparently, Ms Claudia MO's motion attempts to further negate the Mainland, and hurt the relationship between Hong Kong people and the Mainlanders.

Deputy President, as Hong Kong has become a part of China since the reunification, it is even more necessary for us to learn about and analyse the Mainland in an objective manner in order to enhance our sense of belonging and extend the room for our career development. As Members are aware, the Cultural Revolution caused disruption to the Mainland from the 1960s to the 1970s, at which time society was distorted both morally and culturally. It was not until the opening of the Mainland after 1979 that the situation was rectified. Over the past few decades, China has evolved from an impoverished country to a major world power managing to achieve rapid economic growth. In the course of China's development, the Mainlanders have more opportunities to get in touch with the outside world, and they need some time for adaptation. This is in fact quite similar to the case of Hong Kong. Hong Kong people who could afford to travel abroad during Hong Kong's economic take-off in the 1970s were also kind of ignorant rustics in the eyes of foreigners. Another example is the Taiwanese who visited Hong Kong during the prosperous years of Taiwan, many of them were regarded as the boastful nouveau riche. Yet these phenomena have diminished following the progress of society.

I believe that as the Mainlanders have exchanges with the outside world at various levels through studying, doing business and travelling, they will learn about the standards of civilized behaviours in various advanced cities and countries, and review whether their own behaviours are different. I am sure that the situations will improve gradually as before through this learning process.

Deputy President, there is now a global interest in China. People do not only focus on China's rapid development in capitals, Internet, infrastructure technologies, hi-tech manufacturing industry, and other technological and economic aspects. More importantly, they now see the rise of the middle class in the Mainland. The Chinese middle class are rising in education and civilized levels, have consumption potential, and are set to bring about countless business opportunities to investors. People know that if they can know more about the Chinese culture and the Mainland, their next generations will be in a better position to develop in the enormous Mainland market, and this will contribute to the development of their home economies. Recently, Britain has made a special provision of £10 million for the recruitment and training of Chinese teachers in order to enhance the learning of Chinese language among their students. And in the United States, President OBAMA launched the "1 million Strong" initiative in a bid to realize the target of having 1 million US students studying Mandarin by 2020. As such, I hope Ms MO and Mr FAN can stop making myopic and biased judgment on the Mainland and vilify the Mainlanders. They should realize that in the eyes of foreigners, China is different now. Hence I urge Members to consider the Mainland today in the light of history and future development.

Deputy President, it is an undeniable fact that the Mainland is sailing towards the direction of becoming an enlightened and progressive society. Following the improvement in the quality of its people, we will see a change in the behaviours that have aroused criticism, and the change will become more noticeable. My concern at this moment is not how Hong Kong is affected by the uncivilized culture of the Mainland. I am instead concerned that some persons, including certain Members in this Chamber, make use of young people's discontent with the Government and their ignorance of the situations and affairs of China to foment dissension, and instigate anti-government and anti-Mainland sentiments. In the Legislative Council, on the Internet or through other publicity channels, they preach to the young people that they should uphold what they believe as "justice" through various irrational, violent, illegal and dishonourable means. 

Hong Kong people should reflect on a series of incidents which occurred in Hong Kong recently, including, among others, a series of activities aiming to assault, bully and insult Mainland visitors; examples of Legislative Council Member using coarse language in a debate and committing violent behaviours to attack the President's judgment; university professors making open remarks that encourage the people to break the law; the violation of the agreement of confidentiality by a member of the council of a prestigious university who secretly keep the audio record of a council meeting and revealed it to the media subsequently. However, all these behaviours have not been strongly denounced, and some even made up justifications to defend for these behaviours. If this becomes a trend, Hong Kong's core values will not be undermined by the Mainland culture; rather, the enlightened, courteous and friendly Hong Kong spirit that we have all along take pride in will be damaged time and again by these politicians for their own interests on the excuse of justice. Moreover, I have to point out that under the environment where a stag is called a horse and the relationship between the Mainland and Hong Kong is time and again damaged, the prospects of our city will be grim; worse still, the development of our next generation may be adversely affected, and Hong Kong may fall behind the global development in the end. 

With these remarks, Deputy President, I oppose the original motion and Mr Gary FAN's amendment.