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"Two Systems, Two Countries is important because it provides a complex, multifaceted analysis of the Hong Kong nationalist movement. Kevin Carrico brings a wealth of new empirical sources, taking seriously different voices in Hong Kong and the mainland's response."—William A. Callahan, Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics, and author of Sensible Politics: Visualizing International Relations
"There is a common but glaring misconception in the field of post-colonial studies: the idea that imperialism is a predominantly Western phenomenon. Examining China's increasingly draconian imperialism in Hong Kong, as well as Hongkongese resistance, Two Systems, Two Countries fills an important gap that has separated post-colonial studies from the realities of colonialism today."—Sing Yan Eric Tsui, visiting scholar at Academia Sinica and author of A National History of Hong Kong
"World history shows us that national consciousness in search of liberation from empire, once established, would live on despite the most draconian repression. Carrico‘s meticulous ethnography of Hong Kong has discovered the latest variants of such consciousness. Lurking underground or roaring out in the open, this consciousness will continue to be an unignorable force shaping the city’s future."—Ho-fung Hung, Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy, Johns Hopkins University
List of contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Newest Nationalism
From One Country, Two Systems to Two Systems, Two Countries
A Note on Method and Surveillance
Layout of the Book
1. Hong Kong Ethnogenesis
Take One: The Psychopathology of Identity
Take Two: Noncompliance Cycle
Take Three: Toward a Critique of Hong Kong under Chinese Rule
Take Four: On the Ethnicization of the Hong Kong Police Force
2. Two Systems, Two Countries: New Directions in Political
Thought in Hong Kong since 2011
From City-State
Theory to Eternal Basic Law
Self-Determination:
An Unrequited Social Contract
Hong Kong Independence
Returnism: Party Like It’s 1997
Conclusion: Hong Kong’s Political Enlightenment
3. Seeing (Exactly) Like a State: Knowledge/Power
in the Hong Kong-China
Relationship
Toward a Structuralist Orientalism
Hong Kong as Child
Hong Kong as Hysteric
Hong Kong as Outlaw
Hong Kong as Virus: One Body, Two Systems
From Knowledge/Power to Ignorance/Power to Knowledge versus Power:
The Not-So-Hidden Script of Hong Kong Policy
Conclusion: Knowledge versus Power
Character Glossary with Cantonese (Yale)
and Mandarin (Pinyin) Romanization
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Kevin Carrico is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at Monash University. He is author of The Great Han: Race, Nationalism, and Tradition in China Today and translator of Tibet on Fire. He is also a former columnist for Hong Kong's Apple Daily.
Summary
As Hong Kong is integrated into the People’s Republic of China, ever fewer people in the city identify as Chinese. Two Systems, Two Countries explains why.
Two Systems, Two Countries traces the origins of Hong Kong nationalism and introduces readers to its main schools of thought: city-state theory, self-determination, independence, and returnism. The idea of Hong Kong independence, Kevin Carrico shows, is more than just a provocation testing Beijing’s red lines: it represents a collective awakening to the failure of One Country Two Systems and the need to transcend obsolete orthodoxies. With a conclusion that examines Hong Kong nationalism’s influence on the 2019 protest movement, Two Systems, Two Countries is an engaging and accessible introduction to the tumultuous shifts in Hong Kong politics and identity over the past decade.
