A lesson in loyalty could see China take firmer grip on Hong Kong

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Hong Kong is at risk of losing its distinct status inside China, one of the country's most prominent democracy advocates is warning, as officials with ties to Beijing publicly discuss the need for a more propaganda-heavy school curriculum in the special administrative region.

The threat of mainland China asserting greater control suggests the "one country, two systems" approach to Hong Kong is at risk of bleeding into a "one country, one system" model, said Bao Tong, the most senior Chinese official jailed for his sympathy with student protesters killed at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Mr. Tong was jailed and then placed under virtual house arrest for his views, but has continued as a consistent critic of Beijing's governance. He closely followed the so-called "Umbrella Movement" that occupied Hong Kong streets for 79 days in the second half of 2014. And though the Occupy Central protests failed to bring any meaningful change to the electoral freedoms Beijing is willing to grant, Mr. Bao said they nonetheless succeeded in exposing the extent to which China is altering its approach to a place that it pledged to provide with a high degree of autonomy.

But "'high autonomy' is actually 'National People's Congress autonomy.' And 'Hong Kongers administering Hong Kong' is actually 'the NPC administering Hong Kong.' Isn't that well known now?" Mr. Bao, 81, said in a telephone interview from his home in Beijing, which remains under constant surveillance by authorities despite his advanced age.

"This is the accomplishment of Occupy: to have people know the will of Hong Kong citizens, and the central government's attitude – the truth of 'one country, two systems,'" he said. "This is a big accomplishment."

The NPC is China's rubber-stamp national legislature, which published rules proposing the continuation of a 1,200-person nominating committee to prescreen Hong Kong chief executive candidates. Beijing holds sway over that committee, and critics have labelled that system "sham democracy," equating it to Iran and North Korea.

Chinese officials have, in turn, called the Umbrella Movement an illegal occupation. They have said their electoral proposal is in keeping with the Basic Law that acts as Hong Kong's constitution, and will give its people greater democratic freedoms than they have today.

But in the wake of the protests, China is now also contemplating far-reaching new education policies. In separate comments in recent days, both Chen Zuoer, a top adviser to Beijing on Hong Kong, and Rao Geping, a Chinese law professor who sits on the Hong Kong Basic Law Committee, have called for the introduction of "national education" to the region. Such a curriculum would be built around Beijing's desires, with the aim of promoting loyalty to the mainland among future students in Hong Kong. Efforts to introduce it in the past have sparked huge protests and China has backed down.

Now, Mr. Chen and Mr. Rao both say the Occupy protests make clear the need for such a program, to give Hong Kong's next generation a more favourable view of Beijing.

"Many young people haven't been able to get used to the fact that Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. They grew up with a lack of national education, coupled with sentiments against the Communist Party of China, which has led to some of them being on the political front line," Mr. Rao told a forum in Beijing.

Mr. Chen said Occupy protesters had been "brainwashed" into supporting the movement.

Mr. Bao expressed sadness over those sentiments, saying they reminded him of Bitter Love, a 1981 film about the Cultural Revolution that was banned after it angered Deng Xiaoping. Its most famous line, delivered by a daughter to an artist father who had been tortured and would soon die, is "You love this country of yours, you can't bear to leave it. But does this country love you?"

In China, Mr. Bao suggested, calls for patriotism tend to be one-sided, demanding a love for the state that is not often requited.

"The Cultural Revolution," he said, " was very patriotic."

In 1989, Mr. Bao was a senior aide to Zhao Ziyang, then-general secretary of the Communist Party of China who was among the political elite to advocate for listening to demands from student protesters. After Mr. Zhao lost an internal battle that ended with the military opening fire on students, he was placed under house arrest and Mr. Bao was sentenced to seven years in prison.

In the years since, under the constant eye of a Chinese security apparatus that still has him under virtual house arrest, Mr. Bao has been a consistent critic of the Communist Party. He was among the drafters of Charter 08, a document that called for political reforms in China, including direct elections, and has written commentaries that supported the Hong Kong protesters.

He called Beijng's deaf ear to the Umbrella Movement a blunder.

"The side who refuses to have a discussion is the one that is mistaken," he said. The National People's Congress, in Beijing, "decided that no one is allowed to question it, but only to obey it? That people would have no right to discuss [these issues] with them? I don't know what to call that."