Early 2012 Hong Kong protests
| 2012 Kong Qingdong incident | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | 21 January 2012 – late February 2012 | ||
| Location | Hong Kong | ||
| Causes | Inflammatory remarks by Peking University professor Kong Qingdong; longstanding social tension in Hong Kong. | ||
| Goals | Expulsion of Kong Qingdong from Peking University | ||
| Methods | Public protest, media campaign | ||
| Parties to the civil conflict | |||
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In January 2012, Peking University professor Kong Qingdong made televised remarks suggesting that many Hong Kong people were disloyal to China and still harboured a colonial mentality. Kong Qingdong called Hong Kong people "dogs" in response to an online video posted about a mainland Chinese child eating on the subway, which is prohibited by MTR regulations. This prompted a series of campaigns against Kong Qingdong in Hong Kong. About 150 people gathered at the Central Government's Liaison Office on 22 January to protest Kong's remarks.
The protests took place to the backdrop of increasing tensions between native Hong Kong'ers and mainlanders, including the release of a survey indicating that Hong Kong people feel increasingly separate from, and superior to, Mainland Chinese people.
At the time of the protests, anti-Mainland Chinese sentiment in Hong Kong had been growing because of the large influx of mainland Chinese mothers arriving in Hong Kong to give birth, largely for their children to receive right of abode in Hong Kong and the social services that came with it.
Since 1997, University of Hong Kong professor Robert Chung (Chinese: 鐘庭耀) had been regularly conducting surveys on how residents in Hong Kong view their own identity. Of particular significance was the comparison between Hong Kong residents who preferred to be identified primarily as "Hong Kong people" as opposed to "Chinese", largely as a result of many Hong Kong'ers harbouring cultural and political values that were seen as distinct from those of China at large.
In December 2011, Chung's poll showed that 63% of the people considered themselves "Hong Kongers" first, and only 34% thought of the same way of being "Chinese" first. This is the highest ratio of those who consider themselves primarily as "Hong Kong people" (Chinese: 香港人) since the transfer of sovereignty to China in 1997. After Chung published his results, two pro-Beijing newspapers in Hong Kong, Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao alleged that Chung was a "political fraudster" with "evil intentions" to incite people to deny they are Chinese. One pro-Beijing columnist asked whether Chung's actions were subversive, and whether his scholarship was the result of political bribery. Chung rejected the charges of bias and released a statement that the "Cultural Revolution-style curses and defamations are not conducive to the building of Chinese national identity among Hong Kong people".
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