Hong Kong: The Crack-up

Hong Kong is typically celebrated as the Oriental Pearl owing its prosperity to a free economy and the British rule of law, and lately the front line of a pro-democracy movement that courageously confronts the authoritarian sovereign to its north. In reality, Hong Kong, as ominously foretold by its geographic features, has been cracking up like a plate. This metaphor is more of a methodological insight than a mere rhetoric device in that it takes nothing short of a rigorous analysis at the micro level to overcome the deeply entrenched bending of the nearly two-century long arc of Hong Kong’s life for geopolitical and propaganda purposes at various junctures. This Essay is an exercise of critical phenomenology that seeks to challenge the grand myth of Hong Kong’s autonomy and expose the lines of flight that have caused unrest in Hong Kong and fissures in America alike.