The contradiction between China's desire to enhance its influence while refusing to allow its own people rights and freedoms taken for granted elsewhere affects China's position even in its own backyard. Since 1997, Hong Kong - handed back to China by Britain after a century and a half of colonial rule - has been a special administrative region, ostensibly enjoying a high degree of autonomy.
Beijing has worked hard to win the hearts and minds of Hong Kong's 7 million people. For example, in 2003, after Yang Liwei, the first Chinese astronaut, returned from space, he was sent on a tour of the country. The first city he visited was Hong Kong. In 2007, marking the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty, Beijing gave a pair of pandas to Hong Kong though the city already had two. And in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, equestrian events were held in Hong Kong.
Despite such wooing, many people in Hong Kong still do not welcome the association with China. In fact, a recent survey conducted by the University of Hong Kong found that twice as many people favored the Hong Kong identity over being Chinese.
The Chinese government was not pleased. Hao Tiechuan, spokesman for the central government's Liaison Office in Hong Kong, called the survey "unscientific" and "illogical." Robert Chung, director of the university's Public Opinion Program, which conducted the survey, became the target of vicious attacks in the pro-Beijing press.
Such surveys are not new. Chung has been conducting them regularly since 1997, reporting the ups and downs in terms of Hong Kong people's identification with China. This time, Chung said, the sense of Hong Kong identity had reached a 10-year high, while identification with China had dropped to a 12-year low.
To understand why Hong Kong seems so resistant to China's charms, Beijing could perhaps examine its own behavior. Last August, when Vice Premier Li Keqiang visited the University of Hong Kong, he was seated in the chancellor's chair although he was a guest. Three students who attempted to approach him were thrown to the ground by the police. The furor that followed overshadowed Li's attempts at promoting economic development.
Chung insisted that the polling was an academic exercise unrelated to politics and refused to be drawn into a debate with his critics, citing "Cultural Revolution-style curses and defamations."
But his critics were unrelenting, accusing him of trying to incite Hong Kong people to deny that they're Chinese, accepting "political dirty money" and being linked with a suspected British intelligence agent. Chung said he had never met the British official.
One commentator, Song Sio-chong, wrote in the China Daily that the results of the survey were unreliable, undesirable and dangerous. "Such a distorted survey should not enjoy the so-called academic freedom," he concluded. "If the public interest is paramount, then academic nonsense is not sacrosanct."
In the face of this onslaught against academic freedom, part and parcel of Hong Kong's core values, the Hong Kong government must tread a fine line. Raymond Tam, secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, denied interference by Beijing, saying that "anyone can give opinions on various matters," as if Beijing's spokesman in Hong Kong was just another individual whose freedom of speech needs to be protected.
Tam went on to say that academic freedom is protected by the Basic Law, Hong Kong's mini-constitution, and "is an important social value treasured by Hong Kong." The government, he said, has been striving to maintain an environment "so that academics can conduct academic activities, such as research and survey, uninhibited."
To strengthen patriotic sentiment in Hong Kong, Beijing has urged the introduction of "national education" into the curriculum. Hao, the Chinese official, blandly accepted that this was tantamount to brainwashing, but said it was something that all countries do.
Of course, Beijing is Hong Kong's sovereign, in a position to throw its weight around when carrots like pandas and astronauts don't do the trick. But if China wants to enhance its influence internationally through soft power, it must be sure that the velvet glove hides the iron fist inside.
