Hong Kong's dirty little secret: Racism
By Kent Ewing

HONG KONG - This city's dirty little secret has finally been addressed in an anti-racism bill passed nearly 40 years after Hong Kong signed onto an international covenant against racial discrimination.

But pardon Hong Kong's minority groups as they pointedly refrain from celebration. Their lack of enthusiasm is easy to explain: the Hong Kong government is largely exempt from the bill's provisions, and mainland Chinese, arguably the group most discriminated against here, receive scant protection from the new law.

Those hoping to see Hong Kong develop into a more multicultural society in the manner of Singapore and Malaysia will bedisappointed, but the legislation, passed last week by a unanimous Legislative Council, nevertheless marks a milestone in this predominantly Chinese city's relationship with minorities.

Although the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was extended to Hong Kong in 1969, a succession of British governors did precious little to address the problem, prompting complaints from the United Nations about the city's lack of progress in establishing a fair society for ethnic minorities. While the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) was established in 1996, a year before the handover to Chinese rule, it has been predictably ineffectual because of the lack of any legal framework that would have given it teeth. Now that framework is finally in place - but there are still lots of missing teeth.

The good news is that, once the anti-racism bill is enacted, "discrimination, harassment and vilification on the ground of race" will be illegal in Hong Kong. That landlord who refused to rent to you because you are not Chinese is now a criminal, as is the employer who refused to hire you and even the taxi driver who refused to pick you up. Racism has never been a nasty, overt affair in Hong Kong, but it is nonetheless a deeply embedded part of the culture. The bill, it supporters state, marks a turning point in changing that culture.

Hong Kong is a city of 7 million people, 95% of whom are ethnic Chinese. The remaining 5% include Europeans, Indians, Pakistanis and Nepalis, who can offer ample testimony to the city's long-standing, casual form of racism. Hong Kong is also home to more than 250,000 domestic helpers from the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand, who live on the fringes of society. All these minorities can take heart from the new legislation.

As critics rightly point out, however, the law is as noteworthy for what it leaves out as for what it includes. The biggest complaint among human-rights activists is that the bill lets the government off the hook. Many of the government's public functions will not be covered by the legislation lest - or so government spokesmen claimed - city officials face an avalanche of frivolous lawsuits from opportunistic minorities out to make easy money. This exemption not only goes against international practice; it also defies common sense and, in the final analysis, means that branches of the government such as the police and immigration departments cannot be held legally accountable for racial discrimination.

In response to a storm of protest against the government exemption, EOC chairman Raymond Tang Yee-bong proposed a compromise: rather than submit to each of the bill's anti-discrimination provisions, he suggested that the government instead make a general legal commitment to promote racial equality. Even that, however, was too much for the administration of Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen to accept, leading to doubts about how rigorous the Tsang government will be when it comes to enforcing the new law.

Those doubts were only exacerbated by the administration's insistence that protection against language discrimination should not be included in the bill. But, in a rare and embarrassing occurrence, even government-friendly lawmakers turned against the administration on this point, and a prohibition against language discrimination is a feature of the adopted legislation.

In a telling omission, however, the bill does little to prevent discrimination against recent immigrants from the mainland. To an outsider, this may seem a small point - after all, how can recent arrivals from the mainland be considered a minority group vulnerable to discrimination when they are Chinese? And, indeed, that was the government's argument for leaving them out. While, in the end, that argument prevailed, it does not hide the fact that mainlanders suffer some of the worst discrimination in Hong Kong.
Whether it's tour guides or shop owners trying to cheat them, teachers who don't want to teach them or employers who don't want to hire them, stories of the city's enduring prejudices against their brothers and sisters from across the border are legion. Eleven years after the handover, too many Hong Kong people still regard their mainland brethren as rubes and social leeches who undermine their culture and threaten their way of life. The irony of these outdated attitudes is rich now that Hong Kong's prosperity is dependent on China's continuing economic boom.

Ask mainland immigrants dwelling in the slum of Tin Shui Wai - aka the "City of Sadness" - if they feel they get a fair deal and you will most certainly get an earful. Government neglect is one big reason that unemployment, crime, suicide, child abuse and general misery are so disproportionately high there. The fact that these residents of Tin Shui Wai are not an ethnic minority is a moot point. That does not make the discrimination they suffer any less real. They are a cultural minority deserving of protection in legislation that Hong Kong now holds up to the world as a reflection of its progress as a fair and humane society.

In the absence of any legal commitment from the Tsang administration, Stephen Lam Sui-lung, secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs, has promised "administrative guidelines" to cover the holes in the anti-racism legislation. He has hailed the new law as a victory, a conclusion with which most human-rights activists offer qualified agreement, and EOC chairman Tang has called on everyone to live up to the spirit, not just the letter, of the law.

That's the tricky part. For too many, there are letters missing, and the spirit remains in doubt. Kent Ewing is a teacher and writer at Hong Kong International School. He can be reached at kewing@hkis.edu.hk.

I noticed a lot of racism toward Mainlanders while I was there...yes Mainlanders and Hong Kongers are different in a lot of ways, but there should be no animosity among the groups. Hong Kong is rejoining the Mainland completely in a couple decades, and more and more immigrants will be switching over to live in HK. I'm glad that it will finally be illegal to discriminate based on race, especially because I might move back there next year..

I have spent a lot of time in Hong Kong, and yes the unfortunate truth is that racism is indeed rather prevalent.

During the colonial period, the (white) expats were almost completely segregated from the locals, except for a very small class of (mainly western educated) elites. The other locals, the "heartlanders", while never ostracised or persecuted, led a very segregated life. It is this group of locals who are the most racist - not just against Mainlanders, but all foreigners in general.

The educated middle-class locals are much less racist because of the fact that they now interact frequently with foreigners, both in the workplace and in social settings.