Hong Kong’s youth identity crisis worsening as Beijing tightens the reins, author of ‘Generation HK’ says
Financial Times correspondent and author Ben Bland believes young people are feeling more alienated after increasing pressure on Hong Kong’s autonomy and that the city’s young political community is at a point of reflection
Journalist and author Ben Bland, 35, refers to those Hongkongers who have come of age since the 1997 handover as “Generation HK”, and the group was the focus of his 2017 book, Generation HK: Seeking Identity in China’s Shadow. But he believes that even though it is not yet a year since the book’s publication, the situation has already changed significantly.
“Increased pressure on Hong Kong’s autonomy from [China] in the past year has added to the sense of identity crisis. The pressure has increased,” said Bland, the South China correspondent for the Financial Times based in Hong Kong, to a packed house at a Royal Geographic Society event in Wan Chai last week.
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When he finished the first draft of his book, activist Nathan Law Kwun-chung had been admitted to Legco and things were looking up. But the past 10 months have seen Law and others kicked out of Legco, young activists jailed and their political movement break up.
Bland said Hong Kong’s young political community was at a point of reflection.
“They’ve tried going to the streets and that didn’t work. They’ve tried going into politics and that didn’t work. Everything has happened so quickly on the political front, now they have to go away and think about what they can do next,” he said.
Although impressed with the determination of young Hongkongers to fight for the things they believe in – “a lot of young people around the world talk about it, but it’s rare to maintain momentum when facing hurdles” – Bland is disheartened by what he sees as the emergence of a vicious circle.
