Defining Fellow Compatriots as ‘Others’ ‐ National Identity in Hong Kong

Abstract

Recent theoretical discussion and Empirical Evidence have shown that national identity is important at both collective and individual levels. The issue of national identity is particularly relevant to the community of Hong Kong, which was reunited with the People's Republic of China (PRC) on 1 July 1997. The fact that 97 per cent of Hong Kong's population is Chinese does not guarantee the automatic development of a sense of national identity. Mutual understanding between the people of the two places is not as easy and natural as one might expect, for objective differences, such as those found in the political, legal and economic systems, make the ‘other’ more stranger than kin. Such difficulties were compounded by the phenomenon that, unlike in many former colonies, the people of Hong Kong did not abhor their outgoing British rulers; in fact many were quite nostalgic about the colonial period.