Introduction to Hongkongology: A tale of two unequal civilizations: China-Hongkong struggles for the making and remaking of Hong Kong and China

【I】What is Hong Kong: A Civilizational Mutant: In 175 years, Hongkong has attained the status of an autonomous Society, Culture and People, endowed with quasi-modern socio-economic and political institutions, practices and culture, characterized by individualism and freedom, pluralism and openness, and rule of law and meritocracy. But China and Hongkong have conflicting views of Hong Kong, various sectors in China and Hongkong also have conflicting attitudes towards Hong Kong. 【II】PRC’s Wishful, Dictatorial Thinking, Plan and Policy on Hong Kong: In various stages and in different ways before 1979, PRC made full use of Hongkong-China differences and Hong Kong’s relations with the West. With the start of Sino-British negotiations on Hong Kong’s post-97 Future, China has cared more on what should post-97 Hong Kong be, how should Hong Kong integrate with China and be re-formed on the socio-economic, political and cultural planes. 【III】 Resistance to “Mainlandization“ and Safe-guarding Hong Kong: Championed by the babyboomer and supported by the general populace which by and large have an traumatic impression of China since 1949, a resistance to “Mainlandization“ and semi-democratization movement has been mounted by the middle class for 40 years. Rejection generates a self-awareness of Hongkong Localness and primordial sense of Independence among the youngsters. 【IV】Interchanging of Two Hongkongs and Two Orbits: China-Hongkong socio-cultural and political struggles for the making and remaking of Hong Kong has been raging on for the last 20 years resulting in socio-economic, political and cultural disintegration and ineffectual governance gridlock. In the contexts of East-West differences and exchanges, there are “Battle of Two Hongkongs” and “Battle of Two Chinas”. In confrontation are Hongkong’s “Individual-based Freedom Pluralism and Gradualism” (IFPD) Mode in “Hong Kong Miracle” and China’s “Contemporary Civilizational Transformation” VS China’s millennium-old “Collectivism-oriented Freedom, Monism and Radicalism” (CFMR) Mode in “Chinese Historical Miracle” and China’s “Contemporary Civilizational Transformation”. 【V】Hongkongology: Part of a Bigger China and China-and–the-World Story China has been swinging between conflicting modes of extremity in China’s “Contemporary Civilizational Transformation” for 200 years, been brandishing its millennium-old “Collectivism-oriented Freedom, Monism and Radicalism” (CFMR) Mode in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the World, that is the only way (Chineseness) it knows for five millennia.